Personally I really enjoyed it, Vogel seemed somewhat liberal at times but he generally held a very objective stance. Also the CIA reviewed the book before it came out to make sure "classified information don't leak" so I was disappointed I never read something about the alleged role of China in Afghanistan in the 80s
Just about all academic books especially those published through a university press are reviewed by scholars of the field, usually in academic journals. If you have access to jstor, here is a list of fifteen reviews on the book. One of them is open access, though you can often times find free and accessible reviews from the journal on various archival or publishing sites.