September 2013 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW ’s role in bringing down totalitarianism. detail. It should be stressed that many flexians ∆ are persons whose names are not household words, yet they behave as if they wielded some MORE BOOKS mysterious power––in the Polish case, they seemed to wield power over those who Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power questioned them in the Polish Senate hearings. Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market, by Janine R. Wedel. Subsequent chapters show “flexing” in the New York: Basic Books, 2009. xv + 281 pages. U.S. government and argue that government Index. ISBN 978-0-465-09106-5. Hardcover. today includes a “shadow government” $27.50. consisting of “consulting firms, nonprofits, think tanks, and other nongovernmental entities” (76). anine Wedel is a brilliant social scientist Wedel states that at some point three-fourths of J who has articulated a problem that is often federal government employees were contractors sideswept by the powerful information industry: (78). These figures make the perennial the fact that “upending rules and authority” (ix) discussion about paring down the government has become the norm in virtually all countries, mere campaign talk. In particular, the and the goal is to increase one’s own status and Department of National Security (called a influence. “The new breed of international “megabureaucracy” by Wedel) recorded players” has fashioned new rules of the game to “colossal increases in contract spending with benefit themselves (x). Today power and Defense accounting for nearly three-quarters of influence are held not by their ostensible holders the total federal procurement budget in 2008” but rather by “flexians” (xi), who are the real (79). The general public has no idea about this agenda-wielding players. It is this “network of shadow government that leaches out resources [anonymous] interlocking players” (xii) that and in practice rules over the country. There are matters and not the ossified institutions, titles, companies employing tens of thousands of and offices. Those who participate in the workers who mainly work for the U.S. networks are called flexians and perform government. Supervision of these companies is overlapping roles in large foundations, the scant, statistics are nonexistent, and the government, and industry. They “reorganize functioning of this system is shrouded in relations between bureaucracy and business to mystery. their advantage” (7) and are “accountable only to their patrons” (9). They are people of diverse Wedel also discusses Moscow and the ideological persuasions, which they change privatization process in the former Soviet Union. depending on which way they feel the wind Finally, we return to the to look at blows. Their goal is not always money; more the “commandeers” of this new way of often it is influence and promotion of their governing (147). Wedel submits that the ideological views. Flexians are particularly “neocon core” (147) deserves that name more numerous in Eastern European countries; the than anyone else. She mentions Richard Perle, former communist apparatchiks transformed Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith, three themselves into go-betweens and mediators in government officials who distinguished the new system. This shadow elite undermines themselves by skirting bureaucracy, breaching democracy and capitalism. regulations, and being skillful in bailing each other out of trouble (147). Wedel posits that “neoliberal policies facilitate the blurring of state and private relationships, Can one speak of accountability then? Not and thus make local environments friendlier to before another term is introduced, “truthiness.” flex activity” (33). She then offers examples of It differs from truth in that truthiness means flexians that range from ostensibly ordinary folk presenting events and ideas in the way we would to government figures. The Rywin affair in like them to be, and not necessarily in a way that involved Agora, Adam Michnik, and congruent with facts. In literary studies this is many other persons of power is described in called postmodernism. Truth has lost its

1788 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2013 previous position in public discourse. What to perpetual adjuncts paid by the course like appears in the media and in the mouths of housemaids paid by the hour? The authors list celebrities is “truthiness.” Celebrities play two reasons. The first is a refusal to consent to themselves on television, as do government use, praise, and teach the Marxist or neo-Marxist officials. “The rise of the shadow elite warrants methodologies such as those practiced by the revising age-old thinking on corruption. . . Frankfurt School or, in generations past, by the “flexians and flex nets pursue the ends of their old-fashioned communist fellow travelers so own ideological masters who often contradict well represented at American universities and the other masters they supposedly serve,” colleges. The second is a refusal to engage in the remarks Wedel (205). This book is well worth study and teaching of narratives about several buying, especially for the reduced price select minorities such as sexual minorities. Not available at Amazon.com. (SB) all minorities have been certified for academic approval: try to establish an Institute for the Teoria – literatura – dyskurs. Pejzaż Study of non-Germanic Central European postkolonialny, by Dariusz Skórczewski. Minorities and you will encounter empty coffers Lublin: Catholic University of Lublin Press, and the blank gaze of your administrative 2013. 508 pages. ISBN 978-83-7702-615-1. superiors. It takes courage and pluck to dare to Paper. In Polish. speak about such issues in public since major work of interpretation that complaints about discrimination based on the A combines theoretical sophistication with above two reasons for academic rejection are genuine concern for factual detail as reflected in frowned upon in American academia. We salute Polish literature starting with the Romantic poets Dr. Mary Grabar for daring to come forth with and ending with contemporary novelists. In this this book. Gutta cavat lapidem. Hopefully, book Polish literature is seen in a postcolonial books like this one will eventually lead to a great mirror, as well it should given the forcible academic awakening in America. partition of the Polish state during the period of Poland: A , by Adam Zamoyski [2009]. Romanticism and its status as a province of alien New York: Hippocrene Books empires throughout the nineteenth century and (www.hippocrenebooks.com), 2012. xxii + 426 beyond. The author is familiar with the most pages. Photographs, index, maps. ISBN 13-978- recent postcolonial studies, and many of his 0-7818-1301-3. Paper. $19.95 from publisher. insights are highly original and seminal to the study of postcolonialism in the former Soviet compact and well-written history of empire. This habilitation book makes the author A Poland, updated to the time of the Third a leading authority on postcolonialism in Poland Republic (1989–present). It replaces Norman and one of the leading voices in postcolonial Davies’s The Heart of Europe [1984]. studies worldwide. A longer review to follow. Zamoyski, a Britisher of Polish background, is the author of The Polish Way [1993] and other Exiled: Stories from Conservative and books on Polish history. Moderate Professors Who Have Been Ridiculed, Ostracized, Marginalized, The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles under Demonized, and Frozen Out, edited by Mary German Occupation, 1939–1944 [1986], by Grabar. Scottsdale, GA: Dissident Prof Press Richard C. Lukas. Foreword by Norman (P.O. Box 156, Scottsdale, GA 30079), 2013. Davies. 3rd ed. New York: Hippocrene Books ISBN 978-0-9860183-2-9. Paper. (www.hippocrenebooks.com), 2012. War photographs and documents, index, collection of essays by American bibliography. xviii + 358 pages. ISBN 13-978-0- academics (with an introductory essay A 7818-1302-0. Paper. $19.95 from publisher. and an afterword penned by the editor), detailing the ways in which “politically incorrect” his is the first and so far only English- aspirants to academic positions are elbowed out T language study of the German Nazis’ of academia. What makes potential professors dramatically different treatment of the Polish fail to obtain academic rank? What reduces them population, as opposed, say, to the French

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