Author Topic: Richard Pipes  (Read 4378 times)

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Zvezda

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Richard Pipes
« on: February 11, 2008, 05:54:05 PM »
The venom disseminated by Richard Pipes has committed much harm to scholarship over the last two decades. As one whose work has been endlessly derided by the scholarly community, Pipes's work on 20th century Russia cannot be taken seriously.

Quote
The question of whether, where, and how the revolution went wrong deserves serious scholarly investigation, and it deserves open scholarly debate. This debate is not well served by this methodologically flawed polemic masquerading as historical scholarship.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2801(199306)65%3A2%3C432%3ATRR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U

The reader closes this long, angry, and gloomy book with relief. It is a pity indeed that Pipes, blinded by a narrow, unattractive ideology, in spite of his obvious erudition, intelligence, and talent, could not retell the great story of the Russian Revolution in a convincing fashion.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0036-0341(199107)50%3A3%3C345%3ATPOSHA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4

Rather than providing a synthesis of what we know about the revolutionary processes of 1917-18 or a
reinterpretation that contends with the major contributions of recent historiography (almost none of which is even referred to in notes or bibliography), Pipes has offered a personal political vision, an indictment that is highly selective, uneven in its treatment, and eccentric in its emphases and omissions.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762(199112)96%3A5%3C1581%3ATRR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X

Offline LisaDavidson

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Re: Richard Pipes
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2008, 11:40:07 PM »


As with all members of this Forum, you are welcome to your opinion. Richard Pipes is well regarded as an academic and a historian by many. If you wish to discuss Dr. Pipes, why not offer your own specific criticisms?

Offline Belochka

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Re: Richard Pipes
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2008, 05:55:57 PM »
The venom disseminated by Richard Pipes has committed much harm to scholarship over the last two decades. As one whose work has been endlessly derided by the scholarly community, Pipes's work on 20th century Russia cannot be taken seriously.

Snake venom can cause paralysis and death. Stalinist edicts had that effect.

Some may not agree with Professor Pipes' work but in the context of freedom of speech (unlike in soviet Russia) his contribution to the intellectual community adds to the enrichment of scholarly debate.


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Offline AGRBear

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Re: Richard Pipes
« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2008, 10:17:09 AM »
The venom disseminated by Richard Pipes has committed much harm to scholarship over the last two decades. As one whose work has been endlessly derided by the scholarly community, Pipes's work on 20th century Russia cannot be taken seriously.


Every word you post presents a person who has been brainwashed into thinking that communism was the best thing that happen since the invention of the wheel. 

Pipes may not have gotten everything right but he was darn close.  Perhaps,  you should reread his book and take it to heart because his description of Russia is what my families remembers.  Most members of my family, who hadn't managed to escape before 1918,  were labeled as "Kulacks" and  very few lived into the 1940s. 

The trains were full of my cousins that headed toward Siberian camps....  The sick, the dying and the dead were pushed out of the train cars which left a trail of  horror along the tracks....  Lice and fleas crawled among the living who were too tired to stratch or care... The smell of the overflowing single bucket used as a toliet was wretched....  No water... No food...  Babies... The poor hungary babies crying and crying....

Surly,  you've heard of the trains that took so many people to the "camps" where their dead children were stacked like cords of wood because the ground was frozen and no one could be buried....

AGRBear
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lexi4

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Re: Richard Pipes
« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2008, 11:20:30 PM »
The venom disseminated by Richard Pipes has committed much harm to scholarship over the last two decades. As one whose work has been endlessly derided by the scholarly community, Pipes's work on 20th century Russia cannot be taken seriously.

Quote
The question of whether, where, and how the revolution went wrong deserves serious scholarly investigation, and it deserves open scholarly debate. This debate is not well served by this methodologically flawed polemic masquerading as historical scholarship.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2801(199306)65%3A2%3C432%3ATRR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U

The reader closes this long, angry, and gloomy book with relief. It is a pity indeed that Pipes, blinded by a narrow, unattractive ideology, in spite of his obvious erudition, intelligence, and talent, could not retell the great story of the Russian Revolution in a convincing fashion.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0036-0341(199107)50%3A3%3C345%3ATPOSHA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4

Rather than providing a synthesis of what we know about the revolutionary processes of 1917-18 or a
reinterpretation that contends with the major contributions of recent historiography (almost none of which is even referred to in notes or bibliography), Pipes has offered a personal political vision, an indictment that is highly selective, uneven in its treatment, and eccentric in its emphases and omissions.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762(199112)96%3A5%3C1581%3ATRR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X

I believe the quotes you one of those links are from a review written by Peter  Kenez. Did you know that Pipes was his advisor at Harvard?
« Last Edit: February 25, 2008, 11:22:20 PM by lexi4 »