Red plenty

434 pages

English language

Published April 8, 2010

ISBN:
978-0-571-22523-1
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Goodreads:
6481280

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4 stars (15 reviews)

2 editions

Review of 'Red plenty' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This is a story of how a dream is born and how it dies.

The book is written as a novel, but it is definitely nonfiction, or maybe better, it is a dramatization. Yes, this is a dramatization of a usually dry and academic subject of planed economy and creating true Communism in the 50s and 60s. It starts with glorious optimism that came with the death of Stalin and the Khrushchev takeover (this is quite relative) and launch of Sputnik. With the demonstration of Sputnik, Khrushchev puts all of his hopes into matching and surpassing the Americans with the use of science and technology. The Universities flourish (if you are an engineer), information sciences are of the ground and cyberneticians are brave enough to question party s economic dogma and solve the problem of making true utopia. With this our main characters, some real people, some emagined embark to …

Review of 'Red plenty' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This book is pretty unique, both in style and topic, and almost certainly not for everyone. But if you're in that weird niche of people seriously fascinated by the intersection of technology and high politics, it is a unique read you'll remember for a long time.

You can follow up afterwards by reading the Red Plenty Seminar from Crooked Timber, featuring the best serious analysis of "the optimization problem" that I've ever seen, as well as lots of other interesting material.

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