VIXI: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger

Those born into Polish Jewry did not expect or want extraordinary lives, but if they escaped the conflagration, as Richard Pipes and his parents did, they involuntarily gained such lives. Pipes writes with his usual eloquence, such a rare trait among today's inept and jargon-fouled academics, and fascinatingly tells of the vanished multiethnic Poland he knew, acclimation to college in Ohio, and his distinguished academic career. It is a shame that this page is being abused by paltry detractors -- undoubtedly resentful over the loss of their political dreams -- to attack him personally.

When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union 'the evil empire', much of the western left stood up on its hind legs and howled in dismay - but today, after the Soviet Union had collapsed, people in Moscow commonly refer to their past as 'the evil empire'. Prof Pipes, a leading Russian expert, was one of few westerners who saw through the farce of communism and urged the hard and sensible line against the USSR, which ultimately led to its collapse. It is pathetic how some reviewers are still fighting an ideological fight they had lost - 'swinging their fists after the fight is over' to use a Russian expression - and viciously pan Prof. Pipes' beautifully written book.The flaw of most memoirs is that they have a high point - usually the beginning or the middle, and then they trail off. Pipes is as alive and intellectually vigorous at 80 as he seems to have been in his youth and his autobiography is a pleasure to read to the last page.His many asides are charming - on the academe, on the personalities in the Reagan White House, on the kaleidoscope of people he meets, works with, loves, hates. I wish I could have taken a course with him.

It might seem unlikely that the autobiography of a professor of Russian History should be of interest to the general reader. However, Professor Pipes has written a book that deserves to be read by a wide audience. In fact, I would especially recommend it to intelligent high school and college readers.Pipes recounts three main stages of his life: His youth in and flight from prewar Poland; his education and building of a career in America; and his two-year service on President Reagan's National Security Council. The first section is like other Holocaust escape memoirs in having some excitement and danger, but the difference here is that Pipes minimizes these elements. Traveling through Germany and Italy on a phony passport, he is determined to visit art museums, seemingly placing his intellectual passion ahead of safety. Indeed, Professor Pipes's intellectual intensity is the main theme of this book. After his arrival in America his intellectual passion takes him from a backwater college to a professorship at Harvard. Pipes is frank about the careerism involved in academia, and scathing about the abuses to which scholarship is put. One example that stands out is his mentioning a well-known professor of Soviet political science who absurdly "found no significant difference between the way New Haven was administered and any city of similar size in the Soviet Union."Pipes finds similar attitudes in government, where some of his superiors averted their eyes from unpleasant truths. I found that the most interesting aspect of his section on government service was his observations of his colleagues. For example, Pipes didn't hold then-Vice-President Bush in high regard, and perhaps the only instance of humor in this book is directed at Henry Kissinger.Professor Pipes is very self-assured and in this book he makes a good case for his pride. Whether or not one agrees with Pipes's judgments, it is hard not to be inspired by his love of learning and breadth of intellectual interests. It is for this reason that I would especially recommend the book to motivated young readers.

Pipes is the greatest living student of imperial Russia and the revolution. His influence on a generation of scholars and commentators is only matched by Conquest's. Anyone interested in policymaking relative to the Soviet Union will enjoy this book, as will people interested in the evolution of a distinguished intellectual. How many people could invite Isiah Berlin, Bunny Wilson and George Kennan to dinner and expect them all to accept?The reviewer jillenium is mistaken in his/her Latin translation. Vixi means "I lived" or "I have lived"; vixeram is the pluperfect tense and means "I had lived." Give the Yale University Press some credit!

A wonderfully engaging autobiography of a man who, as a teenager. was present when the Germans entered Warsaw in 1939, and who, as an adult, was a close adviser of President Reagan and one of the very few people to understand the Soviet Union. A story told with wit and panache. The best autobiography to come out of Harvard since that of J.K. Galbraith. It will live.