Paul Kengor

A Singular Bond That Changed History

Even as historians credit ­Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II with hastening the end of the Cold War, they have failed to recognize the depth or significance of the bond that developed between the two leaders.

Acclaimed scholar and bestselling author Paul Kengor changes that.

In this fascinating book, he reveals a singular bond—which included a spiritual connection between the Catholic pope and the Protestant president—that drove the two men to confront what they knew to be the great evil of the twentieth century: Soviet communism.… (mehr)

The book touches on quite a bit more than Marx, in fact, the biography of Marx portion is only a fraction of the book. Odd that it doesn't dive much deeper than his parents, because Marx came from a long line of Rabbis that only ended with his father. I would have liked to know more about his lineage, because a lot of the non-mainstream documentaries at the far reaches of the internet mention this in detail, while the book is silent. It's hard to call this omission an oversight, so I'm leaning towards this being intentional, possibly a publisher or editor's decision.

The majority of the book's content goes into Marx's philosophy, the type of people who pushed it, and the destruction it caused. Many of these characters readers may be familiar with (Crowley), others not so much.

It's told from a heavily Catholic perspective, with many quotes from Popes, Fr Sheen, and statements made by the Vatican. I didn't find this too off-putting, but an Eastern Orthodox perspective would have also been welcomed, since the Eastern Bloc countries were ultimately the most negatively impacted from this philosophy. Fortunately, the book discusses the tragedies that fell on many Eastern Orthodox believers, namely Priests and members of the clergy in effort for them to renounce their faith, and is perhaps one of the darkest and visceral chapters of any book one will ever read. Absolutely necessary, but be warned.

The best I can say about it is that it covers a lot of ground, and not as dry as it could have been. That said, I'm not certain it warrants being 400+ pages long. It repeats itself quite a bit, and I understand that it's to drive certain points home, but I think that could have done that in 325 pages without sacrificing content.… (mehr)

I throughly enjoyed “A Pope and A President” by Dr. Kengor, which was wonderful, and I do recommend to people, and was quite excited to read this book. However, it was poorly written and mostly a diatribe on how badly most biographies on Marx are written. We can tuck this one away with those.

I looked forward to an in-depth biography of Marx; one with a more spiritual take on his life, as this one claimed to be. It was not. The biographical information was lacking, the writing and organization were very poor, and overall the book was difficult to read. If you are looking for an intro to communism and why it is one of the great evils of the world, you may find this book helpful. If you’re looking for a spiritual biography of Karl Marx, this is not it.… (mehr)