Book Review: Fiona Hill - There Is Nothing For You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century

This is a terrible book!

Let me prefix the following review by stating a couple of relevant points about the reviewer (myself):

1) I am Irish and this book zones in on the USA and UK. There is also a little smattering about the USSR/Russia here and there within the bounds of this work but it clearly isn’t the author’s focus in any shape or form. Anyway, as a result of this focus, the prescriptions and numerous repetitive pontifications provided by Fiona Hill in this ode to self aren’t specifically aimed toward a person from Ireland like myself. They are aimed at educated people in the USA and UK (realistically the left wing leaning educated people in both countries). The author clearly has a target audience in mind and I most definitely am not a part of that targeted group. I am an Irish centrist with slight left leanings who judges any political or socioeconomic question as best as possible with the relevant facts I have available. As John Cleese notes in one of his many great comedic sketches about the great advantages of political extremism, this means that I am truly an anomaly to the many folk scattered closer to the extreme poles of the left/right political spectrum in the USA, the UK, and elsewhere.

2) Donald Trump is largely a populist in my opinion. He makes a lot of promises that he does not keep (he isn’t the only politician guilty of this) or are simply outlandish (how is that wall doing?). I don’t like his mannerisms, his historical discussion of women, his level of intelligence (ingest bleach to counter Covid-19 etc.), or the way he stokes division in the USA especially. Consequently, I am no fan of Donald Trump. This is something I clearly share with Fiona Hill. I feel the need to state this fact, as it seems to myself anyone stating this book is terrible is likely to be imagined as a MAGA hat wearing white middle aged conservative man living in some backwater surrounded by cornfields with their hick family by Fiona Hill’s intended audience. I do not think MAGA supporters (the 74 million of them in the USA alone last election) are like the aforementioned depiction by the way (there aren’t that many farms in the USA anymore for a start). It’s merely a notion I have about the very real bias that left wing leaning folk have towards the right wing leaning MAGA preachers.

Ok, now those two points are made with only some embellishment, let me start the actual book review by stating the positive takeaways I got from it:

1) Part one of the book (The Coal House) was enjoyable. This was a clear personal biographical account of Fiona’s early life in Bishop Auckland in the North of England in the 1970s and early 1980s. These words were genuine. It reminded me of The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell. In the first part of that book, Orwell describes the life of miners. To this day, I remember the blue discolouration Orwell described on the miners spines, the grubby accommodation he depicted, and more poignantly the scenario of a husband and wife going through their food cost and ensuring they had strawberry jam as a treat for the young ones! I thought this was going to set up a robust thought out position about the problems we see in today’s USA and UK. Unfortunately, this definitely wasn’t the case.

2) I enjoyed the recounting of the personal professional experience Hill had under Trump. This again felt genuine. It is of course one person’s perspective but this perspective squared with my overall view of Trump that is shaped by his public conduct thus far. The extent of his fragile ego was laid bare well by Hill. That seems to be the fuel that makes Trump tick and hiss! It was a genuinely interesting insight (one of few sadly!)

That’s where my enjoyment of the book ends. There is simply a ridiculous amount wrong with this book:

1) Outrageous statements are made in the most blasé fashion in this work:

a) Her seeming belief that Ireland is a subsection of Britain both geographically and ethnically:

On page 69, Hill makes the following remark:
“In the mid-1980s, Britain continued to be racked by “The Troubles” – the intra-communal conflict in Northern Ireland that had come to be defined by the Provisional Irish Republican Army’s (IRA’s) widespread bombing campaign”

On page 104, Hill makes the following (more insane) statement:
“My family had five of the distinct British ethnic groups in our lineage – English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Traveller”

Now look at those two quotes together. Hill somehow unbelievably states that the Irish are a British ethnic group and also that “The Troubles” were an intra-communal conflict not an intra-national one. Both of these statements are insanely dubious and only a staunch believer in the Commonwealth could make them as unashamedly as Hill does here. Many Irish people would be outraged by these remarks (I am for one!). Hill seems to be completely unaware of that or worse she simply doesn’t care!

b) Her direct equivocation of Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler & Three Distinct Periods of Russian History:

On page 250, Hill states the below:
“The United States under Trump joined the historical pantheon of states promoting conspiracy theories. America was no different from Hitler’s Germany, or czarist, Soviet, and modern Russia. George Orwell’s 1984 moment – of state manipulation of information to deceive and repress the population- came to fruition in 2016-2020 with the QAnon conspiracy and Trump’s eventual Big Lie”

Translation – the USA under Trump was no different to Nazi Germany and three distinct periods of Russian history. It was just like Big Brother in 1984 and only for the Trump years. Nothing bad before or after that!

How has someone as educated as Hill made such a ridiculous statement and worse still how have Harper Collins missed this? Has Fiona forgotten about the holocaust? It is one thing to compare Nazi Germany with Stalinist Russia (Hannah Arendt did this brilliantly in her 1951 work The Origins of Totalitarianism for instance) but to equivocate Trump with Nazi Germany is absolutely disgusting nonsense verging on extremist propaganda. I don’t think Trump ever stooped as low as to say Obama or Biden were akin to Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin (though he may have).

2) There is so much finger pointing to explain the current social malaise in the UK and USA except anywhere near the left wing in the USA or in the UK:

Throughout the book Hill blames the following for the ills in the UK and USA today
1) Ronald Reagan (USA) – right wing.
2) Margaret Thatcher (UK) – right wing.
3) Trump (USA) – right wing.
4) Brexit (UK) – right wing.
5) Nigel Farage (UK) – right wing.
6) Sexism & Gender (USA and UK) – often attributed to the right by the left (like Hill suggests within the rest of the context of her blame) but it is across the spectrum.
7) Racism (USA more and UK a pinch) – right wing associated by the left (like Hill suggests within the rest of the context of her blame) but it is across the spectrum.
8) Geographical constraints (USA and UK) – this is apolitical and a very true and valid point – though Hill lazily pointed the finger at cuts without explaining properly who actually made those cuts!
9) Lack of educational opportunities (UK and USA) – again mostly apolitical but the laisse faire approach to education is often associated with the right wing whereas more collective educational approaches are associated with the left. Hill argues against the former and supports the latter normatively for several pages of this book.

It is not just the latter point. Hill repetitively and ad nausea (mostly via seemingly never ending personal recounting of how she herself has been subject to all these ills for the most part (bar racism) beats the reader across their face with the message (the right is bad and the left will fix everything). There are literally no references in the body of the text. If she quotes a figure you have to try and square it to a scrambled and cobbled together notes section at the back of the book. What serious political or socio economic book other than biased prose or propaganda doesn’t properly reference?

Anyway that’s a different less terminal issue with the book. Although none of the above variables to explain political and socioeconomic discontent in the UK or US are in themselves incorrect (in my view) Hill clearly omits any meaningful discussion of the following for whatever reason (you tell me what you think):

1) Any Labour government since Thatcher (UK) – left wing
2) Any Democrat government since Reagan (USA) – left wing
3) The left perceived as not representing the working class (UK and USA) – left wing.
4) The perception of left wing educational elitism (USA and UK) – left wing.
5) Immigration issues (USA and UK) – mostly left wing
6) Globalisation issues (USA and UK) – mostly left wing
7) The financialisation of capitalism (USA and UK) – left wing and right wing.
8) Growing national debts (USA and UK) – collective spending costs money – left wing and right wing.
9)Intergenerational wealth inequality (USA and UK) – left wing and right wing.

Effectively, Hill fails to address why people are turning on the left in favour of populist rhetoric (mostly coming from the right wing) in both the USA and the UK. She unbelievably and frankly disingenuously ignores the root causes of this change stemming from the left wing. Blaming it all on the right is ludicrous. Voters are turning their back on the left for the right bar the educated elites. I would have expected more from Hill. It’s insane she feels she can diagnose the ills in both countries without any meaningful discussion of the failings of the left! It wasn’t all just the right! Let’s take a few steps past mudslinging please.

This book reminded me a lot of one I read by Thomas Friedman called Thank you for Being Late. It reminded me of that book because it was also a repetitive diatribe filled with sound and fury but quite frankly signifying very little. It is very easy to ridicule the right wing over their performance since the 1980s in both the UK and USA. It has been done by so many left wing academic writers with a strong whiff of narcissism and elitism about themselves! Have they not read each other’s books? They all sing off the same hymn sheet as Fiona. And herein lies the problem with the left. There seems to be no awareness of their hypocrisy.

Let’s look at Hill’s moralising and position depicted in this book. Hill started off in Bishop Auckland in the North of England. She was poor. Through her intelligence, defying her gender, and overcoming geographical disadvantage she went to St Andrews and Harvard. This is an incredible achievement that is book worthy in and of itself. However, Hill still wants to play the poor me card when she is now a part of the socio economic elite. She bemoaned her unequal salary (rightly so) but failed to mention the high six figure salary she was earning to the reader throughout her time in the NSC. She had the audacity of talking about her financial circumstances in the same breath as state workers who weren’t getting paid and consequently often couldn’t afford their next meal following the recent USA government shutdown. In effect, she is still playing the political socioeconomic victim card when she by her own admission in the book is in the top 10% of earners in the USA. This is a group of elites who own a disproportionate amount of the wealth in the country. She lives in a posh area of Washington not a struggling part. She decried educational elites safeguarding university spots for their kids but I sincerely doubt she would give her daughter’s future university place to someone less advantaged. It’s all an act. She was poor. Now she is elite acting poor.

Then finally there is the ridiculous solution to the problems in the USA and UK suggested in this book, which is to have more educational opportunities. I welcome more educational opportunities but this fixes nothing. Not everyone is suited to further education. We need jobs not requiring education to pay enough for someone to live on. No shop clerk is earning enough to raise a family and you sure as hell don’t need a Russian degree to work a till and stack shelves. You just need work ethic and should be paid fairly for your work. We need a spectrum of jobs that pay enough for people to live. The fact we don’t have this in the USA and the UK right now (and elsewhere like Ireland) is a failure of the political elite (left and right).

I strongly advise you not to read this book. It is arrogance disguised in prose. It is exactly what is wrong with the left and why they are so derided by so many.

74 million people voted for Trump. The left have to accept responsibility eventually!