What do you think?
Rate this book
There Is Nothing For You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century
A celebrated foreign policy expert and key impeachment witness reveals how declining opportunity has set America on the grim path of modern Russia—and draws on her personal journey out of poverty, as well as her unique perspectives as an historian and policy maker, to show how we can return hope to our forgotten places.
Fiona Hill grew up in a world of terminal decay. The last of the local mines had closed, businesses were shuttering, and despair was etched in the faces around her. Her father urged her to get out of their blighted corner of northern England: “There is nothing for you here, pet,” he said.
The coal-miner’s daughter managed to go further than he ever could have dreamed. She studied in Moscow and at Harvard, became an American citizen, and served three U.S. Presidents. But in the heartlands of both Russia and the United States, she saw troubling reflections of her hometown and similar populist impulses. By the time she offered her brave testimony in the first impeachment inquiry of President Trump, Hill knew that the desperation of forgotten people was driving American politics over the brink—and that we were running out of time to save ourselves from Russia’s fate. In this powerful, deeply personal account, she shares what she has learned, and shows why expanding opportunity is the only long-term hope for our democracy.
Fiona Hill grew up in a world of terminal decay. The last of the local mines had closed, businesses were shuttering, and despair was etched in the faces around her. Her father urged her to get out of their blighted corner of northern England: “There is nothing for you here, pet,” he said.
The coal-miner’s daughter managed to go further than he ever could have dreamed. She studied in Moscow and at Harvard, became an American citizen, and served three U.S. Presidents. But in the heartlands of both Russia and the United States, she saw troubling reflections of her hometown and similar populist impulses. By the time she offered her brave testimony in the first impeachment inquiry of President Trump, Hill knew that the desperation of forgotten people was driving American politics over the brink—and that we were running out of time to save ourselves from Russia’s fate. In this powerful, deeply personal account, she shares what she has learned, and shows why expanding opportunity is the only long-term hope for our democracy.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published October 5, 2021
About the author
Fiona Hill
9 books307 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Fiona Hill is director of the Center on the United States and Europe, and senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution.
Fiona Hill is director of the Center on the United States and Europe, and senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 692 reviews
October 23, 2021
I read this thinking it was going to be a memoir of her time in the Trump Administration. It was that but so much more. Covers her childhood and adolescence growing up in the mining town Bishop Auckland in Northern England and her extremely improbable career thanks to opportunities of education. Makes an extremely compelling case that we are on the verge of losing our democracies around the world if we do not invest in people. Really enjoyed this even though the message is grim.
March 7, 2022
My story is the exception that proves the rule of class and socioeconomic immobility in the early twenty-first century.
This is a rule that we desperately need to change. The constraints on mobility in America today form the core of our country’s ongoing crisis, as do a similar set of problems in the United Kingdom. They mirror challenges that have dogged our historic adversary, Russia, for decades. And unless we figure out a way to solve them, Russia’s fate and its slide into authoritarianism since 2000 could well be our own. (Page 6)
While I was reading this and thinking about a review, I thought the book had three distinct parts. The first dealt with the discrimination the author faced as a woman from a depressed area of class-ridden England. It described her journey, as she states, from “The Coal House to the White House.” A journey that allowed her to escape the prediction that “There is nothing for you here.”
After becoming an expert on Russia and Vladimir Putin, in the second section she lands in the White House as an analyst for an intelligence agency during the Trump presidency. This section gives us a front row seat to the turmoil that accompanied his presidency.
In the final section the author offers her assessment of the world with a focus on the United Kingdom and the United States. She describes some of the causes and offers some solutions to our current predicament. She emphasizes education, opportunity and socioeconomic equality.
However, a review that focuses on these three sections would miss the big picture she is presenting. The deindustrialization of the economies of the United Kingdom and the United States, coupled with the cuts in government spending during the Thatcher/Reagan years resulted in the loss of a social network to help the working class thrown out of work. This led to the current populist cult epitomized by The Tea Party and the current Republican Party.
Similar to the theme that Ben Rhodes used in his book After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made the author describes populists as dealing in the “Us versus Them”. They offer quick and simple solutions for complex problems. They make promises without ever achieving anything. But political partisanship is as much a national security issue as it is a domestic one.
She sees in Russia and Putin, its populist president, the Ghost of Christmas Future for the United States. She also notes that Trump laid the groundwork for another less personally insecure and more capable populist president to successfully usurp the presidency and alter the Constitution.
As a suggestion on how to avoid this scenario the author relies on her own experience traveling from “The Coal House to the White House.” Just as the Marshall Plan following World War II saved the democracies of Western Europe, she suggests a similar plan to rebuild the appropriate infrastructure by investing in communities, especially remote or rural areas that have been starved for investment. This would build a sense of community among the residents and help them reject the false promises of a populist leader. As she herself experienced, she stresses the importance of education.
Education in all its forms—from elementary to secondary to further education and professional training—is the beating heart of the infrastructure of opportunity. It has the potential to define and redefine who you are and who you will be. (Page 46)
Following the 2016 election I sought in my reading some explanation for the election of Donald Trump, and the fact that the once proud Republican Party could nominate such a candidate. This book, and especially the last section, provide perhaps the best explanation.
I received this book free from the GoodReads Giveaway. By the time I finally did receive it, I doubt I would have bought it for myself. When I did get it I felt obligated to read and review it, which I have. There are legitimate criticisms that can and have been said about this book concerning some of the repetition. But now I am glad I read it.
March 26, 2022
A book about the disadvantages of poverty by someone who grew up poor. Cool! Lovely comparison of the UK, US, and to a lesser extent USSR. Fatigued on the ways to improve end. Not that they ar poor suggestions.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
July 5, 2022
Fiona Hill’s memoir shows how she rose out of poverty in Northeastern England coal country to end up working as top advisor to three presidents on Russia and Europe
Hill tells the story of her education and obtaining here Ph.D.. Education was her way out of poverty. In this story, she tells how Putin took over Russia and how our recent track is following in Russia’s path. Overall, I enjoyed the book and her insights from both a U.K. and American viewpoint. She also tells the usual story of a working women dealing with pay disparity and sexism. I highly recommend this book.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is fifteen hours and thirty-five minutes. Fiona Hill does a good job narrating the book. I always enjoy it more when the author of a memoir tells their own story.
Hill tells the story of her education and obtaining here Ph.D.. Education was her way out of poverty. In this story, she tells how Putin took over Russia and how our recent track is following in Russia’s path. Overall, I enjoyed the book and her insights from both a U.K. and American viewpoint. She also tells the usual story of a working women dealing with pay disparity and sexism. I highly recommend this book.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is fifteen hours and thirty-five minutes. Fiona Hill does a good job narrating the book. I always enjoy it more when the author of a memoir tells their own story.
November 3, 2021
Fiona Hill is the Robert Bosch Senior Fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. From 2017 to 2019, she served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council. She testified to US Congress at President Trump’s first impeachment hearing.
“There is nothing for you here pet”. This was the advice that Fiona’s father, a former miner, gave her when she was considering her future as a child. “Here” was Bishop Auckland, a former mining town in County Durham which was once prosperous until the mining industry closed and gutted the town. As a bright and curious young woman Fiona had to make do with the few opportunities she had to fight for an education. The schools she went to were under resourced. She often had to pitch in with work to support her household. However, through force of will and grabbing what few opportunities she had she ended up going to University in St. Andrews Scotland. Useful contacts, support from the Durham Miners Association and her hard working MP all contributed to her getting the opportunity to enter Higher Education.
Early on Fiona developed a fascination in Russia, heavily influenced by the tense period of the Cold War of the times during the 1980s. She eventually went on student exchanges with to Moscow in what was then the Soviet Union. There she started to see signs of deprivation which to her were all too familiar from her time in Bishop Auckland, which was struck hard by the decline of the mining industry. Through a chance contact she met during her time in Moscow she got the idea of studying further in Harvard University in Boston USA via a scholarship. After much hard work and tense waiting she was successful and left the UK for a new life in the US.
Fiona’s account of moving to the US is enlightening with regards to how she views the different structural barriers that exist there as oppose to the UK. The former Fiona saw as rife with gender and class discrimination. Fiona’s rose tinted view of the US was blighted pretty quickly by the realisation that the country was and still is very much divided. Gender discrimination was, and still is rife, but is trumped by racism. Her first-hand accounts of racism in Boston, a city I remember fondly as a child is quite shocking and saddening. A running theme through this book is her pondering over how to tackle the structural inequalities of racism, gender discrimination and classic discrimination both in the UK and US.
Upon leaving University Fiona established herself as an academic specialist on Russia. After a few roles within think tanks she soon ended up serving her government directly, by working in the National Security Council (NSC) within the White House. She served US Presidents from Bush Jr up to Trump. However, Trump was unlike any President she had previously served.
The way Trump saw things at the time, and no doubt still, Fiona Hill was simply not important enough for him to know who she was. On more than one occasion he confused her with being a secretary. However, these were only the minor problems in the Trump White House. After listening to Trump’s first phone call to Putin, Fiona was less upbeat than his staffers. She observed from them on that Trump’s staff and cabinet to varying extent’s seemed to exist merely to feed Trump’s ego and not challenge his world view. Meanwhile Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump leisurely wandered into high level meetings. Before too long Fiona Hill and the wider NSC staff started to become a target for one of Trump’s most damaging hatreds’; his hatred of experts. For a “gut” populist such as Trump such people simply didn’t fit into his world. All too soon the lunatic fringe of Trump’s supporters started to target her and her family.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and I was intrigued by it not being what I thought it would be. This is not a straight out memoir. In fact, it is clear from the tone of the book that Fiona cares more about what is blatantly the main mission of this book; to address the problem of rustbelt areas globally. Fiona’s message is clear; there should be no more “forgotten areas”. Her father’s advice led her to seek opportunity not just away from home, but in another country. While she doesn’t regret her life as an American citizen, she wishes that others from similar backgrounds will not be forced to migrate just to live their lives. She makes the point often that populist politics from Trump, Farage to Putin has it’s roots in distrust of established leadership circles through resentment bread by real suffering that comes from “forgotten areas”. Curiously, enough I found the chapters when she was describing how bad Trump was during his time in office repetitive and unmoving. This may be because I have read many of these Trump tell all books, but even considering that I am surprised her editor didn’t keep this in mind. I was much more moved by her first-hand experience of living in poverty and experiencing sexual discrimination.
This book deserves reading because Fiona Hill is an atypical insider. One who has lived on both sides of the tracks. Her account is delivered with brutal honesty.
“There is nothing for you here pet”. This was the advice that Fiona’s father, a former miner, gave her when she was considering her future as a child. “Here” was Bishop Auckland, a former mining town in County Durham which was once prosperous until the mining industry closed and gutted the town. As a bright and curious young woman Fiona had to make do with the few opportunities she had to fight for an education. The schools she went to were under resourced. She often had to pitch in with work to support her household. However, through force of will and grabbing what few opportunities she had she ended up going to University in St. Andrews Scotland. Useful contacts, support from the Durham Miners Association and her hard working MP all contributed to her getting the opportunity to enter Higher Education.
Early on Fiona developed a fascination in Russia, heavily influenced by the tense period of the Cold War of the times during the 1980s. She eventually went on student exchanges with to Moscow in what was then the Soviet Union. There she started to see signs of deprivation which to her were all too familiar from her time in Bishop Auckland, which was struck hard by the decline of the mining industry. Through a chance contact she met during her time in Moscow she got the idea of studying further in Harvard University in Boston USA via a scholarship. After much hard work and tense waiting she was successful and left the UK for a new life in the US.
Fiona’s account of moving to the US is enlightening with regards to how she views the different structural barriers that exist there as oppose to the UK. The former Fiona saw as rife with gender and class discrimination. Fiona’s rose tinted view of the US was blighted pretty quickly by the realisation that the country was and still is very much divided. Gender discrimination was, and still is rife, but is trumped by racism. Her first-hand accounts of racism in Boston, a city I remember fondly as a child is quite shocking and saddening. A running theme through this book is her pondering over how to tackle the structural inequalities of racism, gender discrimination and classic discrimination both in the UK and US.
Upon leaving University Fiona established herself as an academic specialist on Russia. After a few roles within think tanks she soon ended up serving her government directly, by working in the National Security Council (NSC) within the White House. She served US Presidents from Bush Jr up to Trump. However, Trump was unlike any President she had previously served.
The way Trump saw things at the time, and no doubt still, Fiona Hill was simply not important enough for him to know who she was. On more than one occasion he confused her with being a secretary. However, these were only the minor problems in the Trump White House. After listening to Trump’s first phone call to Putin, Fiona was less upbeat than his staffers. She observed from them on that Trump’s staff and cabinet to varying extent’s seemed to exist merely to feed Trump’s ego and not challenge his world view. Meanwhile Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump leisurely wandered into high level meetings. Before too long Fiona Hill and the wider NSC staff started to become a target for one of Trump’s most damaging hatreds’; his hatred of experts. For a “gut” populist such as Trump such people simply didn’t fit into his world. All too soon the lunatic fringe of Trump’s supporters started to target her and her family.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and I was intrigued by it not being what I thought it would be. This is not a straight out memoir. In fact, it is clear from the tone of the book that Fiona cares more about what is blatantly the main mission of this book; to address the problem of rustbelt areas globally. Fiona’s message is clear; there should be no more “forgotten areas”. Her father’s advice led her to seek opportunity not just away from home, but in another country. While she doesn’t regret her life as an American citizen, she wishes that others from similar backgrounds will not be forced to migrate just to live their lives. She makes the point often that populist politics from Trump, Farage to Putin has it’s roots in distrust of established leadership circles through resentment bread by real suffering that comes from “forgotten areas”. Curiously, enough I found the chapters when she was describing how bad Trump was during his time in office repetitive and unmoving. This may be because I have read many of these Trump tell all books, but even considering that I am surprised her editor didn’t keep this in mind. I was much more moved by her first-hand experience of living in poverty and experiencing sexual discrimination.
This book deserves reading because Fiona Hill is an atypical insider. One who has lived on both sides of the tracks. Her account is delivered with brutal honesty.
October 29, 2021
I am a big fan of Fiona Hill. During the impeachment hearings, she presented herself as intelligent, competent and confident. I was looking forward to reading her book as I believed she would have worthwhile insights. I was disappointed.
The book was dull, repetitive and her insights were nothing new. She chronicles her rise from meager circumstances to a job at the White House in the form of lists of people who helped her. I appreciate the fact that she understands how important this help was to her, but it doesn't make for interesting reading. Her experiences at the White House were more interesting but there was little that was new. Frankly, I did not enjoy re-living the Trump years.
After repeating the same ideas over and over, she summarizes the book in the last chapter. I would encourage you to read just this summary and spend your reading-time on another book.
The book was dull, repetitive and her insights were nothing new. She chronicles her rise from meager circumstances to a job at the White House in the form of lists of people who helped her. I appreciate the fact that she understands how important this help was to her, but it doesn't make for interesting reading. Her experiences at the White House were more interesting but there was little that was new. Frankly, I did not enjoy re-living the Trump years.
After repeating the same ideas over and over, she summarizes the book in the last chapter. I would encourage you to read just this summary and spend your reading-time on another book.
March 31, 2023
I started out listening by myself, but quickly realized that this book would appeal to Simon also. We started back from the beginning together and we were jointly fascinated by what Hill had to say about the UK, America and Russia. As a foreign policy expert and former presidential advisor, she has the credentials and the lived experience to speak with authority on the social issues we are facing today.
Fun fact, we left the UK to emigrate to America the same year that Fiona Hill did. It was 1989 and we were fed up with the class system in the UK. As for Hill, her father told her to leave the UK as "there is nothing for you here." It had become the land of no opportunity.
Hill is whip smart and we got a sense that if she’d stayed in the UK her career would not have advanced the way it has done while she has been in America. She writes about the British class system and how impossible it is to move out of a class. In the UK your accent dictates your class and Hill’s accent from the Northeast of England labelled her as working class.
In England it’s not uncommon to have elocution lessons to modulate an accent in an effort to move away from a working-class label and into the middle class. For example, my mother-in-law who had a broad Lancashire (Northern England) accent attended elocution lessons, which reduced her accent significantly and thus removed the stigma of her accent and validated her middle class standing in society.
Hill sets out to tell us her story, in the hope that we will “personally relate to the story" and that we will "take away some of the facts and ideas" that she conveys, and that she "provide[s] authenticity, not distraction.”
She writes, “One message I hope to convey more forcefully than any other, it’s that opportunity does not materialize from thin air, and no-one does anything alone.”
I found this interesting, as it is a call to unite and collaborate. Less of the individualistic approach associated with traditional American values and more of the 'we're in this together' team approach.
Hill writes of a fractured and socially divided America and talks of how Trump fueled and leveraged the divide. As president, he created an us versus them situation further dividing the nation. Trump told working class Americans “that their traditional place at the center of US society was being taken away, stolen by left wing interlopers, alien immigrants and all kinds of other deviants from their norms. It was their country, their America, his or our America that others were taking away.”
Additionally, Hill writes that “In his time in the White House Trump had made it is his business to short circuit representative democracy embedded in congress political parties and the full range of American institutions he had weakened the checks and balances of the system pushing out government watchdogs and pulling back oversight mechanisms.” This has resulted in significantly diminished support for America’s education system.
This is truly alarming, as “Educational attainment is now a significant predictor of whether someone will have the opportunity to secure stable full-time employment and crucially how that person will vote.”
What Hill had to say about social media was particularly interesting and concerning. Hill wrote that “Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter facilitated the move of social trends in extreme directions.” This provided an opportunity for President of Russia, Vladimir Putin “to deploy technology to stabilize his regime.”
“In the United States Putin was able to weaponize the same technology against us. Facebook, Twitter and other platforms empowered marginalized groups, undermined social cohesion and social capital and eroded American sense of common shared purpose.”
To get back on track we need to build stronger communities where we look out for each other and especially for those that don't have the same opportunities. Hill writes that it will take “hard work on multiple levels, the Federal Government, States, local communities, schools, colleges, companies, families and personal and professional networks all help to form the infrastructure of opportunity. When opportunity vanishes it’s because this infrastructure has eroded or even failed.”
Hill believes that “education is the beating heart of the infrastructure of opportunity. The place where you live is the body that holds it. Place frames everything else. It has the greatest impact on an individual’s educational and economic opportunity and ability to build wealth. It can hold someone back from finding opportunity or provide a direct pathway to it. For all these reasons unlocking the potential of place is one of the greatest imperatives of the 20th century.”
Additionally, “In the US social system unequal and inadequate access to healthcare is one of the greatest vulnerabilities for individuals and families as COVID-19 underscored in 2020."
At the time of writing this, I learned that Fiona Hill will return to the UK in Summer 2023 to take up the position of Chancellor of Durham University. I hope she finds this new role truly fulfilling.
Fun fact, we left the UK to emigrate to America the same year that Fiona Hill did. It was 1989 and we were fed up with the class system in the UK. As for Hill, her father told her to leave the UK as "there is nothing for you here." It had become the land of no opportunity.
Hill is whip smart and we got a sense that if she’d stayed in the UK her career would not have advanced the way it has done while she has been in America. She writes about the British class system and how impossible it is to move out of a class. In the UK your accent dictates your class and Hill’s accent from the Northeast of England labelled her as working class.
In England it’s not uncommon to have elocution lessons to modulate an accent in an effort to move away from a working-class label and into the middle class. For example, my mother-in-law who had a broad Lancashire (Northern England) accent attended elocution lessons, which reduced her accent significantly and thus removed the stigma of her accent and validated her middle class standing in society.
Hill sets out to tell us her story, in the hope that we will “personally relate to the story" and that we will "take away some of the facts and ideas" that she conveys, and that she "provide[s] authenticity, not distraction.”
She writes, “One message I hope to convey more forcefully than any other, it’s that opportunity does not materialize from thin air, and no-one does anything alone.”
I found this interesting, as it is a call to unite and collaborate. Less of the individualistic approach associated with traditional American values and more of the 'we're in this together' team approach.
Hill writes of a fractured and socially divided America and talks of how Trump fueled and leveraged the divide. As president, he created an us versus them situation further dividing the nation. Trump told working class Americans “that their traditional place at the center of US society was being taken away, stolen by left wing interlopers, alien immigrants and all kinds of other deviants from their norms. It was their country, their America, his or our America that others were taking away.”
Additionally, Hill writes that “In his time in the White House Trump had made it is his business to short circuit representative democracy embedded in congress political parties and the full range of American institutions he had weakened the checks and balances of the system pushing out government watchdogs and pulling back oversight mechanisms.” This has resulted in significantly diminished support for America’s education system.
This is truly alarming, as “Educational attainment is now a significant predictor of whether someone will have the opportunity to secure stable full-time employment and crucially how that person will vote.”
What Hill had to say about social media was particularly interesting and concerning. Hill wrote that “Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter facilitated the move of social trends in extreme directions.” This provided an opportunity for President of Russia, Vladimir Putin “to deploy technology to stabilize his regime.”
“In the United States Putin was able to weaponize the same technology against us. Facebook, Twitter and other platforms empowered marginalized groups, undermined social cohesion and social capital and eroded American sense of common shared purpose.”
To get back on track we need to build stronger communities where we look out for each other and especially for those that don't have the same opportunities. Hill writes that it will take “hard work on multiple levels, the Federal Government, States, local communities, schools, colleges, companies, families and personal and professional networks all help to form the infrastructure of opportunity. When opportunity vanishes it’s because this infrastructure has eroded or even failed.”
Hill believes that “education is the beating heart of the infrastructure of opportunity. The place where you live is the body that holds it. Place frames everything else. It has the greatest impact on an individual’s educational and economic opportunity and ability to build wealth. It can hold someone back from finding opportunity or provide a direct pathway to it. For all these reasons unlocking the potential of place is one of the greatest imperatives of the 20th century.”
Additionally, “In the US social system unequal and inadequate access to healthcare is one of the greatest vulnerabilities for individuals and families as COVID-19 underscored in 2020."
At the time of writing this, I learned that Fiona Hill will return to the UK in Summer 2023 to take up the position of Chancellor of Durham University. I hope she finds this new role truly fulfilling.
October 6, 2021
From northern England’s coal mines to the inner circle of the White House, “There Is Nothing for You Here” is Fiona Hill’s memoir and political prescription for helping us prepare a better future.
Hill was born into a coal mining family and poverty. The book’s title comes from words her father said, urging her to get out of the area, “there’s nothing here for you.” She went off to study Russian and history in Scotland, Moscow and Harvard, all preparing her to serve 3 administrations in Russian & European policy.
The book provides a very detailed look at her childhood and life in northern England with descriptive prose that’s not typical of most political writers; I enjoyed it. Her accounting of events in the White House and with President Trump seem somewhat circumspect to me. Hill has an unique assessment of Trump and his relationship with Putin, (no, she doesn’t think he worked for him!), that also involves the current path America is heading towards Socialism/Communism. Because of her early life in English coal country, time in Russia and years in the USA and DC, Hill is able to comment on personal experience as well as historical events and future possibilities concerning Russia.
Many political writers will give their grand ideas, helpful tips, platitudes for fixing everything that ails our country. Most of it is highly partisan, impossible to accomplish or some buzz phrase being bandied about cyberspace. Hill provides quite a detailed collection of suggestions that are broken down by people groups, ages, access and makes specific suggestions rather than broad generalizations. She draws on all her life’s experience and makes this portion of the book real and achievable for everyone at any age or economic level. This is the summary, the subtitle - “Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century” and it’s here that Hill’s writing comes to its best📚
Hill was born into a coal mining family and poverty. The book’s title comes from words her father said, urging her to get out of the area, “there’s nothing here for you.” She went off to study Russian and history in Scotland, Moscow and Harvard, all preparing her to serve 3 administrations in Russian & European policy.
The book provides a very detailed look at her childhood and life in northern England with descriptive prose that’s not typical of most political writers; I enjoyed it. Her accounting of events in the White House and with President Trump seem somewhat circumspect to me. Hill has an unique assessment of Trump and his relationship with Putin, (no, she doesn’t think he worked for him!), that also involves the current path America is heading towards Socialism/Communism. Because of her early life in English coal country, time in Russia and years in the USA and DC, Hill is able to comment on personal experience as well as historical events and future possibilities concerning Russia.
Many political writers will give their grand ideas, helpful tips, platitudes for fixing everything that ails our country. Most of it is highly partisan, impossible to accomplish or some buzz phrase being bandied about cyberspace. Hill provides quite a detailed collection of suggestions that are broken down by people groups, ages, access and makes specific suggestions rather than broad generalizations. She draws on all her life’s experience and makes this portion of the book real and achievable for everyone at any age or economic level. This is the summary, the subtitle - “Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century” and it’s here that Hill’s writing comes to its best📚
November 23, 2021
Excellent memoir - Fiona Hill tells her story of growing up very poor in the northeast of England with self-deprecating humor, intelligence and honesty. I enjoyed it very much, and am even more impressed by her intelligence, determination, and desire to serve her adopted country. We are lucky to have her.
She uses her own life story, and the experiences of her coal miner father and grandfather, and NHS nurse mother, to illustrate the importance of education and opportunity to succeed and move ahead in life - especially if one is born in one of the “forgotten areas” of the UK - or the US, as she learned as a Harvard graduate student, and later, after marrying an American from a rural Midwestern family.
Hill also clearly illustrates the despair UK, US and USSR residents experienced from the top-down economic transformations put in place by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, then Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and eventually Putin, once the USSR fell apart. These people weren’t consulted or even warned about what was going to happen, and there was no plan to help them adjust to the deprivations and closures to come. Hill spent time studying in Moscow, so is able to compare life there at the very end of the Soviet Union, to the rise of the oligarchs under Putin in the 1990s. She is an acknowledged expert on Putin, and by extension, the dangers of populist rulers. As she points out, they are often big on catchy slogans, surface appearance of progress or success, but light on policy, or in-depth planning. The populist will tell you they feel your pain, and they alone can fix problems, but they are all about themselves and their cronies (who prop them up).
I especially related to her memories of the mid 1980s when she (and I), were going to college. I was so caught in my own life and concerns about getting into (and affording) college, that I forgot a lot of what was happening in the world. This book was like a personal time capsule for me, as a kid from a blue-color Midwestern background who was the first of my family to graduate college, I could relate to all of the Cold War concerns, the economic fears - how would I pay for college? Could I afford to stay long enough to graduate? Like Hill, through part-time jobs and summer jobs, I managed; but as she points out, tuition has become so expensive, students are expected to build such a resume just to get into college, and then network and build connections and mentors to help find a professional job, the dream of an education is becoming an impossible dream for any but the wealthiest. And forget it if a graduate wants to return to the “forgotten place” they came from, if there are no professional opportunities there - even though family, friends, a sense of belonging might draw them back - they have to go where the jobs are, just perpetuating the despair of forgotten people and places.
Hill doesn’t shy away from the role of race, class, income inequality, or gender discrimination in preventing underprivileged citizens from accessing opportunity. She acknowledges other books have pointed out the importance of education in making opportunity in the 21st century, but they haven’t provided any solutions. Hill puts on her policymaking hat and offers several ideas in the Afterword of actions citizens can take, pointing out,
I appreciated the intelligence and care Hill put into this memoir; I’ve only touched on the range that she covers. It was very refreshing, after all the tell-all books revealing the chaos of the last administration. I haven’t had the heart to read those books, first, because most of the most outrageous tidbits were leaked in promotional interviews, second, because I feel if the authors were on the spot and truly alarmed by what they saw, why wait until the damage was done to reveal their damning evidence in a book?
This book didn’t feel at all like that - she addresses her time in the White House, and the subsequent first impeachment hearing, but without sensational revelations or self-serving. She is more concerned with using her experience to spotlight the importance of education and opportunity for all citizens. Very well done, thought-provoking, and highly recommended.
She uses her own life story, and the experiences of her coal miner father and grandfather, and NHS nurse mother, to illustrate the importance of education and opportunity to succeed and move ahead in life - especially if one is born in one of the “forgotten areas” of the UK - or the US, as she learned as a Harvard graduate student, and later, after marrying an American from a rural Midwestern family.
Hill also clearly illustrates the despair UK, US and USSR residents experienced from the top-down economic transformations put in place by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, then Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and eventually Putin, once the USSR fell apart. These people weren’t consulted or even warned about what was going to happen, and there was no plan to help them adjust to the deprivations and closures to come. Hill spent time studying in Moscow, so is able to compare life there at the very end of the Soviet Union, to the rise of the oligarchs under Putin in the 1990s. She is an acknowledged expert on Putin, and by extension, the dangers of populist rulers. As she points out, they are often big on catchy slogans, surface appearance of progress or success, but light on policy, or in-depth planning. The populist will tell you they feel your pain, and they alone can fix problems, but they are all about themselves and their cronies (who prop them up).
I especially related to her memories of the mid 1980s when she (and I), were going to college. I was so caught in my own life and concerns about getting into (and affording) college, that I forgot a lot of what was happening in the world. This book was like a personal time capsule for me, as a kid from a blue-color Midwestern background who was the first of my family to graduate college, I could relate to all of the Cold War concerns, the economic fears - how would I pay for college? Could I afford to stay long enough to graduate? Like Hill, through part-time jobs and summer jobs, I managed; but as she points out, tuition has become so expensive, students are expected to build such a resume just to get into college, and then network and build connections and mentors to help find a professional job, the dream of an education is becoming an impossible dream for any but the wealthiest. And forget it if a graduate wants to return to the “forgotten place” they came from, if there are no professional opportunities there - even though family, friends, a sense of belonging might draw them back - they have to go where the jobs are, just perpetuating the despair of forgotten people and places.
Hill doesn’t shy away from the role of race, class, income inequality, or gender discrimination in preventing underprivileged citizens from accessing opportunity. She acknowledges other books have pointed out the importance of education in making opportunity in the 21st century, but they haven’t provided any solutions. Hill puts on her policymaking hat and offers several ideas in the Afterword of actions citizens can take, pointing out,
“While federal, state, and local governments, large foundations, and wealthy individual philanthropists play critical roles in creating opportunities for underprivileged Americans, each of us as an individual actor can help create what I describe in this book as the infrastructure of opportunity.”She then goes on to list individually what a CEO, or retiree, or teacher, or college student can do.
I appreciated the intelligence and care Hill put into this memoir; I’ve only touched on the range that she covers. It was very refreshing, after all the tell-all books revealing the chaos of the last administration. I haven’t had the heart to read those books, first, because most of the most outrageous tidbits were leaked in promotional interviews, second, because I feel if the authors were on the spot and truly alarmed by what they saw, why wait until the damage was done to reveal their damning evidence in a book?
This book didn’t feel at all like that - she addresses her time in the White House, and the subsequent first impeachment hearing, but without sensational revelations or self-serving. She is more concerned with using her experience to spotlight the importance of education and opportunity for all citizens. Very well done, thought-provoking, and highly recommended.
December 9, 2023
3.8*
This is both a memoir and political and social analysis/commentary by academic and former U.S. official Fiona Hill. It's about her journey from a disadvantaged background in Northeast England to becoming a top level expert on Russia working at the White House and the Brookings Institution. It's about her observations of the three countries that shaped her personally and professionally: the UK, the U.S. and Russia and how much they have in common. Under it all, though, it's about Donald Trump.
Hill is, famously, the National Security Agency official who gave devastating testimony about Trump and his minions at the first impeachment hearings. That actually takes up very little space in the book. She spends a lot more time warning about the dangers of populist authoritarian leaders who come to power in times of political disenchantment and social upheaval. She sees Trump as the weak Boris Yeltsin figure who paves the way for a "less insecure, more capable" autocrat in the future who goes on to become America's Putin. She's concerned with the existence of permanent pockets of poverty and disadvantage that become the breeding grounds of support for such leaders.
Hill argues the only way around this is by providing opportunity, especially educational opportunity to allow people to lead comfortable and fulfilling lives.
The book could have been shorter. Like any teacher she repeats her key points often, to get them through our thick skulls. I think tighter editing would have improved the flow. There are some humorous bits; as often one of few, or the only woman at high level meetings she kept being mistaken for a secretary (by Trump) or the "tea lady." Also liked where, when shopping with her mother prior to the hearings she was loudly called over to look at some suits and blouses for her "impeachment thingy." I could have used more of that.
This is now the fifth of these Trump related memoirs I've read by: Marie Yovanovitch; Alexander Vindman; Adam Schiff and Donald Comey. It's the best of them. Certainly it offers the deepest examination of the factors behind Trump and his ilk. Like the other authors mentioned, Hill takes her chance to settle some scores. What's the point of writing a memoir if you can't dump on your enemies.
I watched or read a number of Hill's articles or interviews since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and have found her to be among the most credible of the experts offered up. I think I'll have to read her book on Putin, given the man stands a decent chance of plunging us all into fiery destruction.
Also a tip of the hat to Coach Jim for pointing me in the direction of this book with his excellent review ( far better than this one). -30-
This is both a memoir and political and social analysis/commentary by academic and former U.S. official Fiona Hill. It's about her journey from a disadvantaged background in Northeast England to becoming a top level expert on Russia working at the White House and the Brookings Institution. It's about her observations of the three countries that shaped her personally and professionally: the UK, the U.S. and Russia and how much they have in common. Under it all, though, it's about Donald Trump.
Hill is, famously, the National Security Agency official who gave devastating testimony about Trump and his minions at the first impeachment hearings. That actually takes up very little space in the book. She spends a lot more time warning about the dangers of populist authoritarian leaders who come to power in times of political disenchantment and social upheaval. She sees Trump as the weak Boris Yeltsin figure who paves the way for a "less insecure, more capable" autocrat in the future who goes on to become America's Putin. She's concerned with the existence of permanent pockets of poverty and disadvantage that become the breeding grounds of support for such leaders.
Hill argues the only way around this is by providing opportunity, especially educational opportunity to allow people to lead comfortable and fulfilling lives.
The book could have been shorter. Like any teacher she repeats her key points often, to get them through our thick skulls. I think tighter editing would have improved the flow. There are some humorous bits; as often one of few, or the only woman at high level meetings she kept being mistaken for a secretary (by Trump) or the "tea lady." Also liked where, when shopping with her mother prior to the hearings she was loudly called over to look at some suits and blouses for her "impeachment thingy." I could have used more of that.
This is now the fifth of these Trump related memoirs I've read by: Marie Yovanovitch; Alexander Vindman; Adam Schiff and Donald Comey. It's the best of them. Certainly it offers the deepest examination of the factors behind Trump and his ilk. Like the other authors mentioned, Hill takes her chance to settle some scores. What's the point of writing a memoir if you can't dump on your enemies.
I watched or read a number of Hill's articles or interviews since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and have found her to be among the most credible of the experts offered up. I think I'll have to read her book on Putin, given the man stands a decent chance of plunging us all into fiery destruction.
Also a tip of the hat to Coach Jim for pointing me in the direction of this book with his excellent review ( far better than this one). -30-
November 11, 2021
What a disappointing book!
It starts fine with Dr. Hill's account of growing up in an English community short of jobs, education and hope. Her account of academic life, mentors, sexism and various appointments are instructive, full of people and institutions that helped and hurt her career.
But then the book veers into her experiences with Donald Trump, his volatile personality and her recommendations for rebuilding our country in his wake. Don't get me wrong: I think Trump hurt our country terribly. But her reporting about him is nothing any newspaper reader didn't already know months or years ago, and her recommendations for rebuilding our country simply echo what others have been saying for a long time.
The book is not worth the price or the time, and I say this as someone impressed with her accomplishments.
It starts fine with Dr. Hill's account of growing up in an English community short of jobs, education and hope. Her account of academic life, mentors, sexism and various appointments are instructive, full of people and institutions that helped and hurt her career.
But then the book veers into her experiences with Donald Trump, his volatile personality and her recommendations for rebuilding our country in his wake. Don't get me wrong: I think Trump hurt our country terribly. But her reporting about him is nothing any newspaper reader didn't already know months or years ago, and her recommendations for rebuilding our country simply echo what others have been saying for a long time.
The book is not worth the price or the time, and I say this as someone impressed with her accomplishments.
October 16, 2021
Fiona Hill burst onto the national, and international, stage when she testified in the 2019 impeachment hearings for President Donald J. Trump.
At the time, British commentators were struck by the woman with a distinctive working-class Northern accent who was an advisor to a US President and senior member of the American foreign policy establishment. The Financial Times referred to her as the “improbable” Fiona Hill. The sting in the tail of her testimony was, for the British establishment, her comment that she felt her background impeded her in the UK in the way it did not in the USA. They wondered how on earth she’d made it from an obscure northern hometown (Bishop Auckland, County Durham) to work in the White House, or, as she puts it in her new book There is Nothing For You Here, “from the coal house to the White House.”
The book is part autobiography, part indictment of the failings of the Trump administration. It embodies the lyrics of the Beatles song, Honey Pie:
She was a working girl
North of England way
Now she’s hit the big time
In the U.S.A.
A coal miner’s daughter
Hill was, literally, a coal miner’s daughter. Born in 1965, her childhood was marred by the decline of the mining industry in the north-east of England. Her father was laid off from the mines and scraped by as a hospital porter. Her lived experience in the region stayed with her as she passed the 11+ exam, survived the challenges of a comprehensive school, made it to St. Andrews University, a scholarship to Harvard, and a stellar career as a fluent Russian-speaking expert the geopolitics of the 21st century and Vladimir Putin.
The book resonated for me because it has echoes of my own path from the north-west of England and the declining industrial town of Crewe to the States. I bailed out of an academic career, but the coincidences, fortuitous meetings, significant mentors, and sheer improbability of life in the USA that Hill notes were also my experience. That, and a shared distaste for what America has become under Trump, were themes in the book that grabbed me.
Populism at home and abroad
Throughout the book, Hill notes how the three countries she has lived and traveled in have embraced populism. The declining industrial areas of the UK are mirrored in the “Rust Belt” regions of the USA and magnified by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Time and again, in ways large and small, she notes how the rise of an authoritarian like Putin is predicated on the same populism exploited by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage’s Brexit campaign in the UK, and, inevitably, the 45th President of the US.
Her academic background and serious foreign policy chops give rise to analysis and insights that distill the confusion surrounding Trump, Brexit, and Russian influence into clearly understandable themes. When political elites ignore the dispossessed, strongmen take center stage. Here’s one of many passages in the book–worth quoting at length–where Hill analyzes this:
"Those who were attracted to the Tea Party and other populist movements were reacting to, and hoping to counter and even reverse, the effects of economic crises and demographic changes. The populists’ supporters were also reacting to and seeking a salve for the intense emotions that these changes and challenges elicited. Major societal changes, especially when they happen rapidly and in combination, help fuel what celebrated scholars of the twentieth century like Fritz Stern called “cultural despair.” Cultural despair is the sense of loss, grievance, and anxiety that occurs when people feel dislocated from their communities and broader society as everything and everyone shifts around them. Especially when the sense of identity that develops from working in a particular job or industry, like my father’s image of himself as a coal miner, also recedes or is abruptly removed, people lose their grip on the familiar. They can easily fall prey to those who promise to put things–including jobs, people, or even entire counties–back in “their rightful place.” "
Hence, Hill demonstrates, Brexit, Putin, Trump. The clear and present danger she identifies is the continuation of populism and the emergence of a leader as competent as Putin on the American scene.
In the aftermath of Trump’s disastrous reign, it was tempting to breath a sign of relief. But that would have been premature, because there was no indication that his dynasty would fade away. And American populism looked like it was here to stay–unless we could find a way to mend our social and political divisions.
The “Russia bitch”
The experience of this multi-lingual academic expert in the Trump White House is no surprise, but nevertheless shocking. It follows challenges she’d experienced being mistaken for a high-end prostitute by hotel doormen when attending senior-level meetings in Moscow, discovering her salary as a woman was significantly lower than less qualified male counterparts in academia, and–early in her university days–being dismissed as a ‘common northerner’ by hoity-toity classmates. In the White House Trump’s first words to her were to yell “Hey, darlin’, are you listening?” when he mistook her as the only woman in an Oval Office meeting for a secretary. Later, she heard, staffers and first family members dismissed her as “the Russia bitch.”
She dishes the dirt on how Trump’s view of the world was that of a New York construction boss used to bullying suppliers, his lack of interest in briefing documents, and fragile ego easily exploitable by savvy foreign powers. Her account adds more damning evidence to the likes of Woodward and Costa’s Peril and Leonning and Rucker’s I Alone Can Fix It.
Education
Hill mounts an appeal to expand the opportunities that gave her a ticket out of County Durham, and me a ticket out of Crewe: education as, in the words of the books’ subtitle a way of ‘Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century.’
Absent this, she concludes:
"These left-behind people deserve better. but their problems are everyone’s. They are our fellow Americans and fellow Brits, in some cases our family members and friends. Helping them will not be purely a selfless act. Because as long as they feel that there is no hope for them, there will be no hope for the rest of us. There will be nothing for us, anywhere."
At the time, British commentators were struck by the woman with a distinctive working-class Northern accent who was an advisor to a US President and senior member of the American foreign policy establishment. The Financial Times referred to her as the “improbable” Fiona Hill. The sting in the tail of her testimony was, for the British establishment, her comment that she felt her background impeded her in the UK in the way it did not in the USA. They wondered how on earth she’d made it from an obscure northern hometown (Bishop Auckland, County Durham) to work in the White House, or, as she puts it in her new book There is Nothing For You Here, “from the coal house to the White House.”
The book is part autobiography, part indictment of the failings of the Trump administration. It embodies the lyrics of the Beatles song, Honey Pie:
She was a working girl
North of England way
Now she’s hit the big time
In the U.S.A.
A coal miner’s daughter
Hill was, literally, a coal miner’s daughter. Born in 1965, her childhood was marred by the decline of the mining industry in the north-east of England. Her father was laid off from the mines and scraped by as a hospital porter. Her lived experience in the region stayed with her as she passed the 11+ exam, survived the challenges of a comprehensive school, made it to St. Andrews University, a scholarship to Harvard, and a stellar career as a fluent Russian-speaking expert the geopolitics of the 21st century and Vladimir Putin.
The book resonated for me because it has echoes of my own path from the north-west of England and the declining industrial town of Crewe to the States. I bailed out of an academic career, but the coincidences, fortuitous meetings, significant mentors, and sheer improbability of life in the USA that Hill notes were also my experience. That, and a shared distaste for what America has become under Trump, were themes in the book that grabbed me.
Populism at home and abroad
Throughout the book, Hill notes how the three countries she has lived and traveled in have embraced populism. The declining industrial areas of the UK are mirrored in the “Rust Belt” regions of the USA and magnified by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Time and again, in ways large and small, she notes how the rise of an authoritarian like Putin is predicated on the same populism exploited by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage’s Brexit campaign in the UK, and, inevitably, the 45th President of the US.
Her academic background and serious foreign policy chops give rise to analysis and insights that distill the confusion surrounding Trump, Brexit, and Russian influence into clearly understandable themes. When political elites ignore the dispossessed, strongmen take center stage. Here’s one of many passages in the book–worth quoting at length–where Hill analyzes this:
"Those who were attracted to the Tea Party and other populist movements were reacting to, and hoping to counter and even reverse, the effects of economic crises and demographic changes. The populists’ supporters were also reacting to and seeking a salve for the intense emotions that these changes and challenges elicited. Major societal changes, especially when they happen rapidly and in combination, help fuel what celebrated scholars of the twentieth century like Fritz Stern called “cultural despair.” Cultural despair is the sense of loss, grievance, and anxiety that occurs when people feel dislocated from their communities and broader society as everything and everyone shifts around them. Especially when the sense of identity that develops from working in a particular job or industry, like my father’s image of himself as a coal miner, also recedes or is abruptly removed, people lose their grip on the familiar. They can easily fall prey to those who promise to put things–including jobs, people, or even entire counties–back in “their rightful place.” "
Hence, Hill demonstrates, Brexit, Putin, Trump. The clear and present danger she identifies is the continuation of populism and the emergence of a leader as competent as Putin on the American scene.
In the aftermath of Trump’s disastrous reign, it was tempting to breath a sign of relief. But that would have been premature, because there was no indication that his dynasty would fade away. And American populism looked like it was here to stay–unless we could find a way to mend our social and political divisions.
The “Russia bitch”
The experience of this multi-lingual academic expert in the Trump White House is no surprise, but nevertheless shocking. It follows challenges she’d experienced being mistaken for a high-end prostitute by hotel doormen when attending senior-level meetings in Moscow, discovering her salary as a woman was significantly lower than less qualified male counterparts in academia, and–early in her university days–being dismissed as a ‘common northerner’ by hoity-toity classmates. In the White House Trump’s first words to her were to yell “Hey, darlin’, are you listening?” when he mistook her as the only woman in an Oval Office meeting for a secretary. Later, she heard, staffers and first family members dismissed her as “the Russia bitch.”
She dishes the dirt on how Trump’s view of the world was that of a New York construction boss used to bullying suppliers, his lack of interest in briefing documents, and fragile ego easily exploitable by savvy foreign powers. Her account adds more damning evidence to the likes of Woodward and Costa’s Peril and Leonning and Rucker’s I Alone Can Fix It.
Education
Hill mounts an appeal to expand the opportunities that gave her a ticket out of County Durham, and me a ticket out of Crewe: education as, in the words of the books’ subtitle a way of ‘Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century.’
Absent this, she concludes:
"These left-behind people deserve better. but their problems are everyone’s. They are our fellow Americans and fellow Brits, in some cases our family members and friends. Helping them will not be purely a selfless act. Because as long as they feel that there is no hope for them, there will be no hope for the rest of us. There will be nothing for us, anywhere."
December 12, 2021
I generally do not read the memoirs of politicians or policy analysts about current events. I already know of the issues from current media reading and the perspectives of the authors are difficult to separate from the situations featured in their memoirs - similar to the general problem of overly defensive autobiographies.
Fiona Hill’s book is different. She was the NSC Russian expert who became involved in Trump’s first impeachment hearings through her testimony regarding efforts to get the Ukraine government to dig up damaging political dirt on Joe Biden in advance of the 2020 campaign and election. It is a complementary account to Alexander Vindman’s book “Here Right Matters”. Hill’s book was especially noteworthy to me because it recounted several distinct but interrelated stories that together make for a strongly told, well written, and integrated account.
Ms. Hill first tells about growing up in Northern England around Durham and recounts the economic and political deterioration of the area as the coal and manufacturing industries declined as England went through deindustrialization. She links deindustrialization to the increasing popularity of populist political messages in Britain and America and shows her background as she worked in the Trump Administration. This is her first introduction to political and economic issues and helps clarify her analytic perspectives. This involves moving out of the class based British educational system and going to St. Andrews for university and eventually on to Harvard. It is a good discussion of how the British educational system work. Ms. Hill is especially effective at showing the interaction of gender and class issues in both the US and Britain in the context of the policy analysis establishment. This is not really new to someone following the development of professional work but she has thought well about it and her discussion is worth reading.
Ms. Hill’s book is especially effective when she compares and contrasts the UK, the US, and Russia, following the fall of Communism. She argues that deindustrialization had similarities across the three countries and that its disruptions significantly contributed to the rise of populist based and would be authoritarian governments such as Putin’s in Russia. Of course there are differences, but the comparisons and contrasts among the US, UK, and Russia go a long way towards linking her work as a policy analyst and historian with her background and personal situation working in the policy analysis world of Washington, D.C. Few recent memoirs do as good a job as she does at motivating her approach to policy and the positions she arrives at. One does not need to agree with her to recognize the value of her work here, including her assessments of Trump and Trumpworld.
As policy memoirs go, this is an outstanding and highly readable book.
Fiona Hill’s book is different. She was the NSC Russian expert who became involved in Trump’s first impeachment hearings through her testimony regarding efforts to get the Ukraine government to dig up damaging political dirt on Joe Biden in advance of the 2020 campaign and election. It is a complementary account to Alexander Vindman’s book “Here Right Matters”. Hill’s book was especially noteworthy to me because it recounted several distinct but interrelated stories that together make for a strongly told, well written, and integrated account.
Ms. Hill first tells about growing up in Northern England around Durham and recounts the economic and political deterioration of the area as the coal and manufacturing industries declined as England went through deindustrialization. She links deindustrialization to the increasing popularity of populist political messages in Britain and America and shows her background as she worked in the Trump Administration. This is her first introduction to political and economic issues and helps clarify her analytic perspectives. This involves moving out of the class based British educational system and going to St. Andrews for university and eventually on to Harvard. It is a good discussion of how the British educational system work. Ms. Hill is especially effective at showing the interaction of gender and class issues in both the US and Britain in the context of the policy analysis establishment. This is not really new to someone following the development of professional work but she has thought well about it and her discussion is worth reading.
Ms. Hill’s book is especially effective when she compares and contrasts the UK, the US, and Russia, following the fall of Communism. She argues that deindustrialization had similarities across the three countries and that its disruptions significantly contributed to the rise of populist based and would be authoritarian governments such as Putin’s in Russia. Of course there are differences, but the comparisons and contrasts among the US, UK, and Russia go a long way towards linking her work as a policy analyst and historian with her background and personal situation working in the policy analysis world of Washington, D.C. Few recent memoirs do as good a job as she does at motivating her approach to policy and the positions she arrives at. One does not need to agree with her to recognize the value of her work here, including her assessments of Trump and Trumpworld.
As policy memoirs go, this is an outstanding and highly readable book.
October 24, 2021
Fiona Hill begins by describing her childhood as the daughter of a former coal miner and the devastation that closing the mines brought. Through her hard-won educational opportunities, she had the ability to study up close economic hardships, not only the UK but also Russia and the US, and provides a comparison of the ways these came about. She also discusses her experiences as a Russia and Eurasia expert for the NIC and therefore, the White House. She follows up with recommendations for “tranformational placemaking,” somewhat of a Marshall Plan to reinvigorate areas that have lost industry and hope, so that the best and brightest in that area don’t have to leave to find opportunities.
November 10, 2021
She’s a great person…but, very impersonal book that’s way too long and very repetitive. Some excellent policy discussions and some concrete suggestions but I was expecting a memoir, not a position paper.
March 27, 2023
Arbeiderklassekvinne's ferd fra forlatte Bishop Auckland i Nord-England til ledende Russland-ekspert som jobbet i det hvite hus under Bush, Obama og Trump.
Fascinerende første 3/4 hvor hun forteller sin egen historie og samtidig diskuterer likheter og forskjeller i sosial ulikhet, diskriminering og populisme mellom Storbritannia, Russland og USA. Siste fjerdedeler blir litt vel mye Trump for min del som trekker litt ned
Fascinerende første 3/4 hvor hun forteller sin egen historie og samtidig diskuterer likheter og forskjeller i sosial ulikhet, diskriminering og populisme mellom Storbritannia, Russland og USA. Siste fjerdedeler blir litt vel mye Trump for min del som trekker litt ned
November 24, 2021
It's dangerous to revisit your heroes, and Fiona's a hero. I don't want to ever get over how she buried an unsuspecting Steve Castor at Trump's impeachment inquiry. He came after her and when she started off with an admission of getting emotional, he fed her rope as fast as she could suck it up, nodding along and never suspecting his opponent might be much smarter than he, and able to use that rope to truss up his argument like a thanksgiving turkey. Which she did. It was the verbal equivalent of getting hit in the face by Serena Williams' backhand.
After that, her poor book didn't have a chance to stand up to the legend. It's like making the kids watch Aliens - neither they nor you will recreate the stark power of the original experience. Still this was worth it for a few reasons. First, you get a fly-on-the-wall's view of the stupid, grafty thoughtless inner workings of the White House under Trump. Yes, it's as bad as you thought.
Second, Hill does a creditable job explaining how the chips really are stacked up in your favor, if you're an advantaged white male, and otherwise, not. She starts by eviscerating the class society of Great Britain in unemotional factual anecd0tes, many of which happened to her. It's fundamentally credible and one gets an appropriately disappointed view of our allies. (If you know me, you know I think America gets poor marks on avoiding self-perpetuating privilege. So it was really something to see that the famously class-stratified British society really deserves the gold medal in that event.) Then she shows how it's the same in Russia, and the US too! ...with fundamentally no differences except more race and less inheritance in the equation, as the discriminating factor. One powerful chapter ended by reminding us that creating the apparatus of opportunity is everyone's job, a cumulative result of some structural biases, yes, but also the product of a thousand little individual efforts. This frankly pushed me to be more aggressive in my own hiring, knowing the people I'm evaluating have swimming upstream their whole lives.
Last, I got the audio book, because I liked her accent, and wanted to hear the thoughts from the author. This worked out well, entertained me on a month of commuting, but I did find the book slow. It's hard for me to pay attention when I'm consuming at a listening pace and I'm sure that were I reading, it would have had more impact.
After that, her poor book didn't have a chance to stand up to the legend. It's like making the kids watch Aliens - neither they nor you will recreate the stark power of the original experience. Still this was worth it for a few reasons. First, you get a fly-on-the-wall's view of the stupid, grafty thoughtless inner workings of the White House under Trump. Yes, it's as bad as you thought.
Second, Hill does a creditable job explaining how the chips really are stacked up in your favor, if you're an advantaged white male, and otherwise, not. She starts by eviscerating the class society of Great Britain in unemotional factual anecd0tes, many of which happened to her. It's fundamentally credible and one gets an appropriately disappointed view of our allies. (If you know me, you know I think America gets poor marks on avoiding self-perpetuating privilege. So it was really something to see that the famously class-stratified British society really deserves the gold medal in that event.) Then she shows how it's the same in Russia, and the US too! ...with fundamentally no differences except more race and less inheritance in the equation, as the discriminating factor. One powerful chapter ended by reminding us that creating the apparatus of opportunity is everyone's job, a cumulative result of some structural biases, yes, but also the product of a thousand little individual efforts. This frankly pushed me to be more aggressive in my own hiring, knowing the people I'm evaluating have swimming upstream their whole lives.
Last, I got the audio book, because I liked her accent, and wanted to hear the thoughts from the author. This worked out well, entertained me on a month of commuting, but I did find the book slow. It's hard for me to pay attention when I'm consuming at a listening pace and I'm sure that were I reading, it would have had more impact.
June 16, 2022
An interesting if overlong book, the main worth of which is probably as a historical document attesting to some of the myriad failings of the Trump administration and how clearly it was angling to become the Trump régime. There was a lot for me to empathise with in the early parts of There Is Nothing for You Here, in which Fiona Hill recounts her childhood in a working-class family in an impoverished part of northeastern England, and how a combination of hard work, timing, and some lucky breaks got her the educational opportunities she needed to make a different life for herself—while she’s roughly a generation older than me, there are similarities in our life stories. Hill writes in a lucid and straightforward manner—although she clearly has more experience writing policy documents than compelling prose—and I respect her decision to eschew scandalmongering or catastrophising, even while she’s clear about just how bad the political, social, economic and environmental effects of worsening inequality will be.
However, while Hill is upfront about the role that race, class, and gender play in shaping and limiting people’s opportunities, her proposals for how these seem to lie very much in the “benevolent capitalism” mode. (She is a Brookings Institution fellow for a reason, I suppose.) I about choked when, right near the end of the book, Hill not only gave credit to the Trump administration for what were clearly holdover economic effects from the Obama administration, but also spoke with approval of J.D. Vance—a man about whom the most charitable thing I can say is “thundering gobshite.”
There’s little here that’s new, either in terms of proposals for change or information about either the Trump administration, the U.K. or Putin’s Russia, unless you’re really new to any works on them. Readable, but not essential.
However, while Hill is upfront about the role that race, class, and gender play in shaping and limiting people’s opportunities, her proposals for how these seem to lie very much in the “benevolent capitalism” mode. (She is a Brookings Institution fellow for a reason, I suppose.) I about choked when, right near the end of the book, Hill not only gave credit to the Trump administration for what were clearly holdover economic effects from the Obama administration, but also spoke with approval of J.D. Vance—a man about whom the most charitable thing I can say is “thundering gobshite.”
There’s little here that’s new, either in terms of proposals for change or information about either the Trump administration, the U.K. or Putin’s Russia, unless you’re really new to any works on them. Readable, but not essential.
October 26, 2021
Much more than a Congressional witness
Fiona Hill was unknown to most of us until she was compelled to testify before Congress. Serving in the Trump administration - with its heavy-handed loyalty tests to “The Donald” - casual viewers might have assumed she was “Trump’s Girl,” that is, until she spoke.
In reality, her internationalist background and education, coupled with her own story of rising above circumstance made her anything but a sycophant for anyone, least of all Donald Trump.
She has earned her right to her opinions and conclusions in this thoughtful book. Unfortunately, those who could benefit most from her insights and conclusions likely read little more than Twitter.
Those who want to understand America’s disturbing turn toward radical populism can learn from Hill’s life and insights.
Fiona Hill was unknown to most of us until she was compelled to testify before Congress. Serving in the Trump administration - with its heavy-handed loyalty tests to “The Donald” - casual viewers might have assumed she was “Trump’s Girl,” that is, until she spoke.
In reality, her internationalist background and education, coupled with her own story of rising above circumstance made her anything but a sycophant for anyone, least of all Donald Trump.
She has earned her right to her opinions and conclusions in this thoughtful book. Unfortunately, those who could benefit most from her insights and conclusions likely read little more than Twitter.
Those who want to understand America’s disturbing turn toward radical populism can learn from Hill’s life and insights.
December 15, 2021
I met Fiona Hill in 1993, when we were classmates in Harvard's PhD program in history. She impressed me as fiercely intelligent and accomplished; my respect for her only increased when I saw her spotlighted on the national stage in 2019. This book combines her personal history with reflections on class, gender, history, politics, and more.
January 21, 2024
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
This was a book club read, and it’s a fine book, but it wasn’t what I expected. I had anticipated a memoir, and it really isn’t that. It’s more aptly described as an autobiography. Fiona Hill describes her background and how she got from Point A (Bishop Auckland in North East England) to Point B (the White House) and how hard she worked to get there. She describes the class discrimination that exists in her native country. Apparently, lower class people from her area have distinct accents that pre-announce their low class backgrounds. She claims that politicians with big aspirations take elocution lessons to learn to speak proper “Queen’s English.”
She had to really apply herself just to get into a secondary school that would then give her a shot at university. She freely admits that she was often in the right place at the right time and had immensely helpful mentors who helped to open doors that may have otherwise been closed.
She earned degrees in history and Russian and became an expert in Russian history, culture, and policies. She actually studied in Russia in the eighties. She compares Trump and Putin as populists and explains how Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan laid the groundwork for the current deindustrialization of both countries. She ended up on the Nation Security Council and was the go to person for all things Russian in the executive offices. Of course, Trump didn’t need her, he said “Rex is doing Russia.”
But there were really no details as to her specific testimony when she was grilled in Congress. I remember when her name was in the news and how she testified for Alexander Vindman, who was the whistleblower regarding Trump’s first phone call with the then new president of Ukraine.
She has lots of ideas how to fix the problems we are facing in the U.S. But sell those ideas to half of Congress and to the people who are supporting Trump’s re-election campaign? I don’t think so! And I’m just tired of reading about Trump.
The ATY Goodreads Challenge - 2024
Prompt #3 - a book that fits a suggestion that didn’t make the final list
This was a book club read, and it’s a fine book, but it wasn’t what I expected. I had anticipated a memoir, and it really isn’t that. It’s more aptly described as an autobiography. Fiona Hill describes her background and how she got from Point A (Bishop Auckland in North East England) to Point B (the White House) and how hard she worked to get there. She describes the class discrimination that exists in her native country. Apparently, lower class people from her area have distinct accents that pre-announce their low class backgrounds. She claims that politicians with big aspirations take elocution lessons to learn to speak proper “Queen’s English.”
She had to really apply herself just to get into a secondary school that would then give her a shot at university. She freely admits that she was often in the right place at the right time and had immensely helpful mentors who helped to open doors that may have otherwise been closed.
She earned degrees in history and Russian and became an expert in Russian history, culture, and policies. She actually studied in Russia in the eighties. She compares Trump and Putin as populists and explains how Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan laid the groundwork for the current deindustrialization of both countries. She ended up on the Nation Security Council and was the go to person for all things Russian in the executive offices. Of course, Trump didn’t need her, he said “Rex is doing Russia.”
But there were really no details as to her specific testimony when she was grilled in Congress. I remember when her name was in the news and how she testified for Alexander Vindman, who was the whistleblower regarding Trump’s first phone call with the then new president of Ukraine.
She has lots of ideas how to fix the problems we are facing in the U.S. But sell those ideas to half of Congress and to the people who are supporting Trump’s re-election campaign? I don’t think so! And I’m just tired of reading about Trump.
The ATY Goodreads Challenge - 2024
Prompt #3 - a book that fits a suggestion that didn’t make the final list
December 29, 2021
I first heard of Fiona Hill when she testified at ex-Pres Trump's 1st impeachment and I have to say she impressed me so very much, along with people like Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Yovanovitch. When I saw this book, There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century, I decided to give it a try.
The story is a combination of a few different themes; the story of Hill's life, her childhood in northeast England, her move to university in Scotland, then on to working for the WH under Donald Trump, and finally a look at the threat of populism and her thoughts on how to try and improve the future for the more disadvantaged amongst us.
All in all, it was a very interesting book. The story of her life in England, how the closing of coal fields affected so many, including her parents; how she was able to take advantage (in a positive way) of scholarships, etc to go to university and across the pond to Harvard and also her thoughts on populism, especially related to her work in the WH under Trump and while testifying at the impeachment hearings.
Hill writes succinctly and clearly and expresses her perspective and thoughts in an interesting, intelligent manner. There is a bit of a rehash over the course of this story but that was basically to emphasize and clarify her ideas. All in all it was an interesting, well-written, clearly presented biography with interesting concepts and ideas for improving the future. Personally, I wonder if the US is so fractured at the moment that it will be difficult (even impossible?) to craft the plan (as she calls it an American Marshall Plan) to change the US in such a way as to make life more equitable for all Americans. Worth reading (4 stars)
The story is a combination of a few different themes; the story of Hill's life, her childhood in northeast England, her move to university in Scotland, then on to working for the WH under Donald Trump, and finally a look at the threat of populism and her thoughts on how to try and improve the future for the more disadvantaged amongst us.
All in all, it was a very interesting book. The story of her life in England, how the closing of coal fields affected so many, including her parents; how she was able to take advantage (in a positive way) of scholarships, etc to go to university and across the pond to Harvard and also her thoughts on populism, especially related to her work in the WH under Trump and while testifying at the impeachment hearings.
Hill writes succinctly and clearly and expresses her perspective and thoughts in an interesting, intelligent manner. There is a bit of a rehash over the course of this story but that was basically to emphasize and clarify her ideas. All in all it was an interesting, well-written, clearly presented biography with interesting concepts and ideas for improving the future. Personally, I wonder if the US is so fractured at the moment that it will be difficult (even impossible?) to craft the plan (as she calls it an American Marshall Plan) to change the US in such a way as to make life more equitable for all Americans. Worth reading (4 stars)
October 20, 2022
The comparison between poor areas of the UK and the poor in the US based on Fiona Hill's family and her husband's family is very interesting. His family was also poor/working class but from the US, and it nicely illustrates those who have been "left behind" in the Rust Belt of the US and former mining areas of the NE UK, priming them to vote for populists (UKIP/Brexit, and Trump) who voiced their feelings that things were unfair, blaming the "Elites" who must be working to hold them down, and then riling them up to take action, ultimately leading in the US to the January 6th, 2021 insurrection.
Education now is once again mostly the province of the wealthy (75% of students come from the top 25% of the income spectrum), and US student loans are far more difficult to pay off than in the UK, where it's based on future income. Lack of access to medical care, same in poor areas of Northern UK and parts of the US, although in the US it is also unaffordable. Statistically the US is less economically mobile than almost any other developed country.
Fiona Hill's front line view of Trump while she was working in the White House is interestingly related, including the infamous Helsinki summit with Putin. She illustrates Trump's populist and authoritarian actions, informed by her studies of Russian history and current study of Putin.
The last couple of chapters have practical examples of development that has worked to increase opportunities in left behind areas of the UK, and suggestions for how government funding can kickstart revitalization, which can't be achieved by individual efforts alone. If the US does not take such steps, populism will only become worse as inequality grows and people realize that they have no options to achieve a middle-class life.
Education now is once again mostly the province of the wealthy (75% of students come from the top 25% of the income spectrum), and US student loans are far more difficult to pay off than in the UK, where it's based on future income. Lack of access to medical care, same in poor areas of Northern UK and parts of the US, although in the US it is also unaffordable. Statistically the US is less economically mobile than almost any other developed country.
Fiona Hill's front line view of Trump while she was working in the White House is interestingly related, including the infamous Helsinki summit with Putin. She illustrates Trump's populist and authoritarian actions, informed by her studies of Russian history and current study of Putin.
The last couple of chapters have practical examples of development that has worked to increase opportunities in left behind areas of the UK, and suggestions for how government funding can kickstart revitalization, which can't be achieved by individual efforts alone. If the US does not take such steps, populism will only become worse as inequality grows and people realize that they have no options to achieve a middle-class life.
May 2, 2022
Fiona Hill wrote this as a memoir/biography. She recounts her story of growing up poor in an English coal-mining family, and takes us through her unlikely path to serving as a US National Security Advisor specializing in Russia and Eastern Europe. I enjoyed it overall—albeit this is a very long book and I felt that some areas got redundant. The end is summed up nicely with her perspectives and ideas for how we can affect change in the tiniest of ways in our own communities. Ultimately, the goal is to be able to tell our younger generations “there IS something for you here”!
March 16, 2022
Solid read, definitely enjoyed the biographical parts the most. Here are the valuable points/takeaways: 1. the big and small ladders and mechanisms that a society sets up to help the marginalized make a big difference, as they did for Hill in finding opportunity. Education should be seen as an investment in a talented population that is a resource in itself; our current educational system doesn't do that because it either gives you a sub-par education (for the marginalized) or saddles you with massive debt if you decide to go for most forms of advanced education. Hill's account of her rise through the educational system was fascinating, especially in her ability to show the class-bound nature of education in Britain.
2. Hill is uniquely situated to compare the effects of deindustrialization in Britain, the US, and the former Soviet Union. The grew up in the former, lives and is now a citizen in the middle one, and is a scholar of the USSR and modern Russia. She shows in this book how deindustrialization and neoliberal policies stripped these areas of jobs, social/educational support, community solidarity, and much of their dignity and identity. She sees the populist challenge of much of contemporary politics (Trump, Brexit, Putin) as a response to and manipulation of populist sentiment, and there's a lot of truth to that notion.
3. Trump is as self-centered, sexist, stupid, irresponsible, and generally piggish as you thought he was. Hill worked on the NSC under Trump after several other posts in previous administrations. She was clearly an outsider in the barbie-doll, Fox News anchor look that most of the women in his administration had. She was treated like a secretary and/or ignored; Trump never read her or any other briefing materials; she was witness to casual sexism in which the men around Trump NEVER stood up to him or defended their female colleagues. Finally, when she told the truth at the impeachment hearings in front of the whole country, Trump denounced her as a traitor and hack. Overall, this is yet another book that documents how, for DJT, foreign policy was all about self-promotion and petty vendettas, how he utterly abandoned his responsibility to learn anything about the world, and how he repeatedly steered the US wrong at home and abroad.
Hill is a good writer and narrator, and she has a lot of insightful points, but the book also has a few flaws. First, she goes into very little detail on the impeachment hearings themselves, which seem like the main reason she's as famous as she is! I was very disappointed by that, as it's half the reason I wanted to read the book in the first place. Second, her analysis of contemporary US politics, especially right wing populists like Trump, vastly underestimates the role of race. She filters the Trump phenomenon through her experience of class and deindustrialization in the UK, and these elements are of course important in the US. However, black and HIspanic people have also suffered from deindustrialization and low-wage service/retail economy, and they have not reacted by essentially losing their minds and turning to worship a blatantly racist, sexist, and anti-democratic authoritarian. The DJT phenomenon as well as today's voting patterns make zero sense unless you consider racial resentment, the feeling of lost status or normativity, and just outright racism among much of the white population. Hill talks about race in the US context but doesn't integrate it adequately into her political analysis.
So in short this is a good read, but not exactly for the reasons I expected. Good for the memoir and the consideration of opportunity, education, and mobility, but weak in political analysis and oddly lacking in discussion of impeachment. Worth reading if you know what you are getting into.
2. Hill is uniquely situated to compare the effects of deindustrialization in Britain, the US, and the former Soviet Union. The grew up in the former, lives and is now a citizen in the middle one, and is a scholar of the USSR and modern Russia. She shows in this book how deindustrialization and neoliberal policies stripped these areas of jobs, social/educational support, community solidarity, and much of their dignity and identity. She sees the populist challenge of much of contemporary politics (Trump, Brexit, Putin) as a response to and manipulation of populist sentiment, and there's a lot of truth to that notion.
3. Trump is as self-centered, sexist, stupid, irresponsible, and generally piggish as you thought he was. Hill worked on the NSC under Trump after several other posts in previous administrations. She was clearly an outsider in the barbie-doll, Fox News anchor look that most of the women in his administration had. She was treated like a secretary and/or ignored; Trump never read her or any other briefing materials; she was witness to casual sexism in which the men around Trump NEVER stood up to him or defended their female colleagues. Finally, when she told the truth at the impeachment hearings in front of the whole country, Trump denounced her as a traitor and hack. Overall, this is yet another book that documents how, for DJT, foreign policy was all about self-promotion and petty vendettas, how he utterly abandoned his responsibility to learn anything about the world, and how he repeatedly steered the US wrong at home and abroad.
Hill is a good writer and narrator, and she has a lot of insightful points, but the book also has a few flaws. First, she goes into very little detail on the impeachment hearings themselves, which seem like the main reason she's as famous as she is! I was very disappointed by that, as it's half the reason I wanted to read the book in the first place. Second, her analysis of contemporary US politics, especially right wing populists like Trump, vastly underestimates the role of race. She filters the Trump phenomenon through her experience of class and deindustrialization in the UK, and these elements are of course important in the US. However, black and HIspanic people have also suffered from deindustrialization and low-wage service/retail economy, and they have not reacted by essentially losing their minds and turning to worship a blatantly racist, sexist, and anti-democratic authoritarian. The DJT phenomenon as well as today's voting patterns make zero sense unless you consider racial resentment, the feeling of lost status or normativity, and just outright racism among much of the white population. Hill talks about race in the US context but doesn't integrate it adequately into her political analysis.
So in short this is a good read, but not exactly for the reasons I expected. Good for the memoir and the consideration of opportunity, education, and mobility, but weak in political analysis and oddly lacking in discussion of impeachment. Worth reading if you know what you are getting into.
April 30, 2022
Fiona Hill is one of the top US Russian foreign relations experts. Her testimony in the first Trump impeachment hearings was nothing short of riveting. She is so articulate, knowledgeable, and has such a breath of experience in the Russian culture and political environment. Her recent interview by Ezra Klein of the New York Times on her experiences in the NSC and with Trump and the current war in Ukraine were also incredibly fascinating.
I decided to read her memoir because I was hoping to get insight into her thinking and also greater detail about her experiences at the NSC focusing on her experiences working for John Bolton and first person experience with Donald Trump and his staff with regard to American relations with Russia, Russia, Ukraine, NATO.
Instead, the focus of her memoir was her upbringing in coal mining England and her experiences at Saint Andrews College and in America at Harvard, etc. I was not particularly interested in her family story, either-she spent a great deal of time on this subject.
Ms. Hill also spent an inordinate amount of time drawing parallels to the British and American domestic policies with regard to the impoverished and working classes. This included plenty of recommendations for making improvements to their plight involving government programs, foundations, and the like.
While these subjects are inarguably critical, they are not Hill’s areas of expertise. I did not find any of her policy prescriptions to be unique. She rehashed a lot of what has been written by those who have spent their careers focusing on this critical subject.
What sets Hill apart is her incredible expertise in Russian politics and its relationship to American foreign policy. In retrospect I probably should have read her biography of Putin written in 2013, which is widely considered to be a classic.
I decided to read her memoir because I was hoping to get insight into her thinking and also greater detail about her experiences at the NSC focusing on her experiences working for John Bolton and first person experience with Donald Trump and his staff with regard to American relations with Russia, Russia, Ukraine, NATO.
Instead, the focus of her memoir was her upbringing in coal mining England and her experiences at Saint Andrews College and in America at Harvard, etc. I was not particularly interested in her family story, either-she spent a great deal of time on this subject.
Ms. Hill also spent an inordinate amount of time drawing parallels to the British and American domestic policies with regard to the impoverished and working classes. This included plenty of recommendations for making improvements to their plight involving government programs, foundations, and the like.
While these subjects are inarguably critical, they are not Hill’s areas of expertise. I did not find any of her policy prescriptions to be unique. She rehashed a lot of what has been written by those who have spent their careers focusing on this critical subject.
What sets Hill apart is her incredible expertise in Russian politics and its relationship to American foreign policy. In retrospect I probably should have read her biography of Putin written in 2013, which is widely considered to be a classic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 25, 2022
Much needed dose of reality. But like many such doses of reality, the taste is slightly disagreeable and I think the overall sweep is a bit depressing.
I was really impressed by two large things in this book
First of all the author is one of the few people who achieved high reaching levels of government business etc. that seems to very earnestly and honestly say, “I got really lucky in these ways“ from mentors to casual conversations, there’s a lot of humility that’s really impressive in this book.
Second, the author does a phenomenal job of painting a picture around the sweeping changes in society that led to the rise of someone like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, etc. Too many of these political hacks point to Trump as a single aberration, or as the manifestation of lower class ennui. he’s a dude riding a wave. And he has to be skilled enough to ride the wave, but he doesn’t control it. It’s the same misconstrue people have with Tucker Carlson or Fox News in general. They’re contributing to the erosion and discourse, but they are not the central hub. The author paints a good picture of how the shifting world is contributing to the rise of these people, they are a product that couldn’t exist in another environment, but they are nothing more than a lightning rod through which we channel the energy of these collective grievances.
I was really impressed by two large things in this book
First of all the author is one of the few people who achieved high reaching levels of government business etc. that seems to very earnestly and honestly say, “I got really lucky in these ways“ from mentors to casual conversations, there’s a lot of humility that’s really impressive in this book.
Second, the author does a phenomenal job of painting a picture around the sweeping changes in society that led to the rise of someone like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, etc. Too many of these political hacks point to Trump as a single aberration, or as the manifestation of lower class ennui. he’s a dude riding a wave. And he has to be skilled enough to ride the wave, but he doesn’t control it. It’s the same misconstrue people have with Tucker Carlson or Fox News in general. They’re contributing to the erosion and discourse, but they are not the central hub. The author paints a good picture of how the shifting world is contributing to the rise of these people, they are a product that couldn’t exist in another environment, but they are nothing more than a lightning rod through which we channel the energy of these collective grievances.
October 22, 2021
Eye opener!
Wow, Ms Hill’s comparisons of her own upbringing in NE Britain with Russia and parts of the USA is eye opener!
Poverty in these parts of the world brings the loss of a good education and a continuous cycle of poverty.
By sharing her experiences she shows people there is hope and a way forward.
Loved the book, very interesting and readable!
Wow, Ms Hill’s comparisons of her own upbringing in NE Britain with Russia and parts of the USA is eye opener!
Poverty in these parts of the world brings the loss of a good education and a continuous cycle of poverty.
By sharing her experiences she shows people there is hope and a way forward.
Loved the book, very interesting and readable!
November 18, 2021
Delusional af believing that some random prick billionaire cares about workers :-D If this bunch of idiots had any brains, they should have understood that billionaires are billionaires because they get a surplus value of work (and subsequently - capital) from everyone else. believing they suddenly start to care about your idiotic problems is purely delusional, especially talking about Trump.
February 27, 2022
An unlikely story of getting from working-class coal area of England’s North to the White House. The story is combine with a mostly nice flow and non-banal political analysis of UK, US and Russian politics of last 40ish years.
One of interesting takeaways for me was an empirical counterexample to Petterson’s justification of gender pay gap. JBP advocates that the gap is caused by women’s larger agreeableness. Though the comparatively larger agreeableness of women is confirmed empirically for example in Prokop’s Slepé skvrny, one has to ask what causes the larger agreeableness? According to Fiona Hill non-agreeble women are seen as difficult and the makers of unnecessary conflict while men are seen as tough. Additionally, women bargain from a worse position than men who have more work opportunities so going away is a real option for them. Furthermore, agreeableness seems not to explain the entire disparity. Another factor is women’s former pay. When women take low-paying job at the start of the career their next employer justifies better but still low pay by their former even lower pay: They get the same relative increase as men, so they should not be upset.
The two cons of the book were some repetition and name-dropping. Repetiotion is perhaps good for smoothing more difficult ideas but it can be botherinf. And the name-dropping seemed to me as Hill’s way of showing she ‘was in the room where it happens’ despite her unlikely socio-economic background. She didnt brag by her own efforts which were admirable but she showed she owed a lot to scholarships and networks of opprotunities. Overt bragging would both undermine her arguments and make her looked terrible. I guess her name-dropping is Freudian slip of making it so far. At some times she might not have believed her own story. So I then met: “Blair, Putin, Trump” is her way of piching herself and saying: “this is truly happening”.
One of interesting takeaways for me was an empirical counterexample to Petterson’s justification of gender pay gap. JBP advocates that the gap is caused by women’s larger agreeableness. Though the comparatively larger agreeableness of women is confirmed empirically for example in Prokop’s Slepé skvrny, one has to ask what causes the larger agreeableness? According to Fiona Hill non-agreeble women are seen as difficult and the makers of unnecessary conflict while men are seen as tough. Additionally, women bargain from a worse position than men who have more work opportunities so going away is a real option for them. Furthermore, agreeableness seems not to explain the entire disparity. Another factor is women’s former pay. When women take low-paying job at the start of the career their next employer justifies better but still low pay by their former even lower pay: They get the same relative increase as men, so they should not be upset.
The two cons of the book were some repetition and name-dropping. Repetiotion is perhaps good for smoothing more difficult ideas but it can be botherinf. And the name-dropping seemed to me as Hill’s way of showing she ‘was in the room where it happens’ despite her unlikely socio-economic background. She didnt brag by her own efforts which were admirable but she showed she owed a lot to scholarships and networks of opprotunities. Overt bragging would both undermine her arguments and make her looked terrible. I guess her name-dropping is Freudian slip of making it so far. At some times she might not have believed her own story. So I then met: “Blair, Putin, Trump” is her way of piching herself and saying: “this is truly happening”.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 692 reviews