The 100 Best Russian History Books
Soviet Era Poster
The 100 Best Russian History Books list begins with an assortment of general histories followed by more specialised texts in approximately chronological order.
1. Russia and the Russians: From Earliest Times to the Present
Geoffrey Hosking is one of the foremost historians of Russia and its people. The result of a lifetime's knowledge, this monumental and authoritative work has been acclaimed as the definitive single-volume history of Russia, tracing its story from the settlement of Kiev through to the present day. This ... More »
2. Russia: A History
Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "a brisk, exciting tour of Russia's long journey from its Kievan origins," Russia: A History cuts through the myths and mystery that have surrounded this nation from its earliest days, with startling revelations from classified archives that until recently were not ... More »
3. A Concise History of Russia
Accessible to students, tourists and general readers alike, this book provides a broad overview of Russian history since the ninth century. Paul Bushkovitch emphasizes the enormous changes in the understanding of Russian history resulting from the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then, new material has ... More »
4. A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present
Synthesizing several decades of scholarship by historians East and West, Barbara Evans Clements traces the major developments in the history of women in Russia and their impact on the history of the nation. Sketching lived experiences across the centuries, she demonstrates the key roles that women played in ... More »
5. Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe
Stretching from the tributaries of the Danube to the Urals and from the Russian forests to the Black and Caspian seas, the vast European steppe has for centuries played very different roles in the Russian imagination. To the Grand Princes of Kiev and Muscovy, it was the "wild ... More »
6. The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999
Modern nationalism in northeastern Europe has often led to violence and then reconciliation between nations with bloody pasts. In this fascinating book, Timothy Snyder traces the emergence of Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Belarusian nationhood over four centuries, discusses various atrocities (including the first account of the massive Ukrainian-Polish ... More »
7. The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 1, From Early Rus' to 1689
This first volume of the Cambridge History of Russia covers the period from early ('Kievan') Rus' to the start of Peter the Great's reign in 1689. It surveys the development of Russia through the Mongol invasions to the expansion of the Muscovite state in the sixteenth and seventeenth ... More »
8. The Emergence of Rus 750-1200
By Simon Franklin; Jonathan Shepard
This eagerly awaited volume, the first of its kind by western scholars, describes the development amongst the diverse inhabitants of the immense landmass between the Carpathians and Urals of a political, economic and social nexus (underpinned by a common culture and, eventually, a common faith), out of which ... More »
9. Medieval Russia, 980-1584
By Janet Martin
This revised edition is a concise, yet comprehensive narrative of the history of Russia from the reign of Vladimir I the Saint, through to the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible. Supplementing the original edition with results of recently published scholarship as well as her own research, Janet ... More »
10. The Formation of Muscovy 1300-1613
This is a comprehensive account of the rise of the late medieval Russian monarchy with Moscow as its capital, which was to become the territorial core of the Soviet Union. The legacy of the Grand Princes and Tsars of Muscovy -- a tradition of strong governmental authority, the ... More »
11. Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History
This revelatory study of Russian medieval history and the age of Mongolian conquest "infuses the subject with fresh insights and interpretations" (History). In the 13th century, a Mongolian confederation known as The Golden Horde dominated a vast region including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the Caucuses. Though ... More »
12. The Time of Troubles: Historical Study of the Internal Crisis and Social Struggles in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Muscovy
Sergei Feodorovich Platonov's Time of Troubles is a classic study of the years 1598-1613, a turbulent and decisive period in Russian history. This English translation is a valuable tool for students of the medieval as well as modern periods. Platonov, himself a tragic victim of the regimentation imposed ... More »
13. Sophia: Regent of Russia, 1657-1704
Sophia Alekseevna, the half-sister of Peter the Great, was the first woman to tule Russia. In 1682, ten-year-old Peter and his mentally retarded brother Ivan were declared joint tsars with 25 year old Sophia as their regent. The regency lasted for seven years until Sophia was ousted by ... More »
14. Between God and Tsar: Religious Symbolism and the Royal Women of Muscovite Russia
Challenging traditional interpretations of the roles of royal women in patriarchal Muscovite society, Between God and Tsar opens a new approach to understanding medieval Russia. Drawing upon a wide range of sources in anthropology, sociology, art history, and literature, it sheds light on the lives of the tsaritsy, ... More »
15. By Honor Bound: State and Society in Early Modern Russia
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Russians from all ranks of society were bound together by a culture of honor. Here one of the foremost scholars of early modern Russia explores the intricate and highly stylized codes that made up this culture. Nancy Shields Kollmann describes how these ... More »
16. Ivan the Terrible
The definitive biography of Ivan the Terrible, setting the Tsar's infamous cruelty within the context of 16th-century Russia "[A] magnificent biography . . . illuminated by the wisdom gained by its author from a lifetime of learning and reflection about the place of Russia in the wider ... More »
17. The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558-1721
This book provides an accessible study of the neglected but highly important series of wars fought for control of the Baltic and Northeastern Europe during the period 1558-1721. It is the first comprehensive history which considers the revolution in military strategy which took place in the battlefields of ... More »
18. Warfare, State and Society on the Black Sea Steppe, 1500-1700
By Brian Davies
This crucial period in Russia's history has, up until now, been neglected by historians, but here Brian L. Davies' study provides an essential insight into the emergence of Russia as a great power. For nearly three centuries, Russia vied with the Crimean Khanate, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and ... More »
19. Russian Rebels 1600-1800
By Paul Avrich
The aim of this book is to unravel the tangled story of the four revolts, to examine their nature, course, and outcome, and to analyze their ultimate historical significance. Who were the rebels? What were their motives, social origins, and modes of behavior? What did they want and ... More »
20. Russia in the Age of Peter the Great
This magisterial book is a history of Peter the Great and the Russia he governed. It not only investigates Peter's life and legacy but also explains the impact of the Tsar Reformer on Petrine Russia's foreign policy, economy, governing institutions, society, culture and educational system. 'The most comprehensive ... More »
21. Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great
In this book, Isabel de Madariaga uses a broad range of Western and Soviet Scholarship to give an account of Catherine's own role in the forward march of Russia during the 18th century. From her accession to the throne in 1762 Catherine ruled Russia for thirty-four years, and ... More »
22. Absolutism and Ruling Class: The Formation of the Russian Political Order 1700-1825
This book is the first comprehensive examination of the Russian ruling élite and its political institutions during an important period of state building, from the emergence of Russia on the stage of world politics around 1700 to the consolidation of its position after the victory over Napoleon. ... More »
23. A Woman's Kingdom: Noblewomen and the Control of Property in Russia, 1700-1861
In A Woman's Kingdom, Michelle Lamarche Marrese explores the development of Russian noblewomen's unusual property rights. In contrast to women in Western Europe, who could not control their assets during marriage until the second half of the nineteenth century, married women in Russia enjoyed the right to alienate ... More »
24. The Partitions of Poland 1772, 1793, 1795
The Partitions of Poland were a key event in the power politics of the late ancien regime, and had major long term consequences for the balance of power in northern and eastern Europe. Over a period of twenty five years Catherine II (Russia), Frederick II (Prussia) and Maria ... More »
25. The Russian Annexation of the Crimea 1772-1783
The Black Sea and the coastal areas have played an important role in the history of eastern Europe and western Asia. Byzantium, Kiev Rus, the Golden Horde, Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire and Muscovy all tried to control parts of its area at various periods in history. From ... More »
26. Where Two Worlds Met: The Russian State and the Kalmyk Nomads, 1600-1771
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the expanding Russian empire was embroiled in a dramatic confrontation with the nomadic people known as the Kalmyks who had moved westward from Inner Asia onto the vast Caspian and Volga steppes. Drawing on an unparalleled body of Russian and Turkish sources-including ... More »
27. Nikolay Novikov: Enlightener of Russia
Nikolay Novikov (1744-1818) was a key figure in Russian cultural life under Catherine the Great. He was in turn a successful journalist, historiographer, educator, publisher, leading freemason and philanthropist and he left his distinctive mark on each of these spheres at a formative moment in Russia. This book ... More »
28. Alexander I
This is part of a series which provides studies of key, political figures in world history since 1500. The books are not biographies as such; rather they are designed to be succinct interpretative essays analyzing the major features of the career within the context of its own time. ... More »
29. Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814
In the summer of 1812 Napoleon, the master of Europe, marched into Russia with the largest army ever assembled, confident that he would sweep everything before him. Yet less than two years later his empire lay in ruins, and Russia had triumphed. This is the first history to ... More »
30. The Origins of Modern Russian Education: An Intellectual Biography of Count Sergei Uvarov, 1786-1855
As minister of education and president of the Academy of Sciences, Count Sergei Uvarov was one of the most important statesmen in nineteenth-century Russia. But, because he has often been labeled as a reactionary and sycophant, his ideas and policies have tended to be dismissed as examples of ... More »
31. The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 2, Imperial Russia, 1689-1917
The second volume of The Cambridge History of Russia covers the imperial period (1689-1917). It encompasses political, economic, social, cultural, diplomatic, and military history. All the major Russian social groups have separate chapters and the volume also includes surveys on the non-Russian peoples and the government's policies towards ... More »
32. Russia and the Idea of Europe: A Study in Identity and International Relations
The end of the Soviet system and the transition to the market in Russia, coupled with the inexorable rise of nationalism, brought to the fore the centuries-old debate about Russia's relationship with Europe. In this revised and updated second edition of Russia and the Idea of Europe, Iver ... More »
33. Women in Russia, 1700-2000
Original in its range and analysis, Women in Russia, 1700-2000 filled an enormous gap in the field. When published in 2003, it was the first book to provide a lively and compelling chronological narrative of women's experiences from the seventeenth century to the present. Synthesizing recent scholarship with ... More »
34. Heretics and Colonizers: Forging Russia's Empire in the South Caucasus
In Heretics and Colonizers, Nicholas B. Breyfogle explores the dynamic intersection of Russian borderland colonization and popular religious culture. He reconstructs the story of the religious sectarians (Dukhobors, Molokans, and Subbotniks) who settled, either voluntarily or by force, in the newly conquered lands of Transcaucasia in the nineteenth ... More »
35. The Russian Peasantry 1600-1930: The World the Peasants Made
By David Moon
This impressive work, set to become the standard history on the subject, offers a definitive survey of peasant society in Russia, from the consolidation of serfdom and tsarist autocracy in the 17th century through to the destruction of the peasant's traditional world under Stalin. Over three-quarters of Russian ... More »
36. Freedom and Terror in the Donbas: A Ukrainian-Russian Borderland, 1870s-1990s
This book discusses both the freedom of the Ukrainian-Russian borderland of the Donbas and the terror it has suffered because of that freedom. In a detailed panorama the book presents the tumultuous history of this steppe frontier land from its foundation as a modern coal and steel industrial ... More »
37. The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860-1930
Richard Stites views the struggle for liberation of Russian women in the context of both nineteenth-century European feminism and twentieth-century communism. The central personalities, their vigorous exchange of ideas, the social and political events that marked the emerging ideal of emancipation--all come to life in this absorbing and ... More »
38. The Russian Empire: A Multi-ethnic History
The "national question" and how to impose control over its diverse ethnic identities has long posed a problem for the Russian state. This major survey of Russia as a multi-ethnic empire spans the imperial years from the sixteenth century to 1917, with major consideration of the Soviet phase. ... More »
39. The Kazakhs
This complete history of one of the largest non-Slavic ethnic groups charts it from its emergence in the mid-fifteenth century to the present. Martha Brill Olcott details the major events that have shaped the character of the Islamic nation of Kazakhstan, discussing the rise and fall of the ... More »
40. For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia
Russia occupies a unique position in the Muslim world. Unlike any other non-Islamic state, it has ruled Muslim populations for over five hundred years. Though Russia today is plagued by its unrelenting war in Chechnya, Russia's approach toward Islam once yielded stability. In stark contrast to the popular ... More »
41. Toward the Rising Sun: Russian Ideologies of Empire and the Path to War with Japan
By David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye
What drove Russia to its disastrous war with Japan in 1904? Was it corruption at the highest levels, ignorance of Japan's naval capabilities, or overconfidence in Russia's own military power? In this highly original study, Schimmelpenninck argues that the conflict came about because of St. Petersburg's erratic and ... More »
42. Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840-1865
By Mark Bassin
In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Russian empire made a dramatic advance on the Pacific by annexing the vast regions of the Amur and Ussuri rivers. Although this remote realm was a virtual terra incognita for the Russian educated public, the acquisition of an 'Asian Mississippi' ... More »
43. Russia's Balkan Entanglements, 1806-1914
In the century between 1806 and 1914 tsarist Russia was drawn into five wars due to its deep involvement, based on treaty rights and established traditions, in Balkan affairs. This book examines the reason for the Russian involvement in the Balkan peninsula and attempts to explain at least ... More »
44. The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in fin-de-Siecle Russia
The revolution of 1905 challenged not only the social and political structures of imperial Russia but the sexual order as well. Throughout the decade that followed\-in the salons of the artistic and intellectual avant\-garde, on the pages of popular romances, in the staid assemblies of physicians, psychiatrists, and ... More »
45. Russian Orthodoxy on the Eve of Revolution
By Vera Shevzov
Vera Shevzov has spent ten years researching Orthodoxy as it was lived in the years before the 1917 Revolution. In Russian Orthodoxy on the Eve of Revolution, she draws on a rich variety of previously untapped archival sources and published works unavailable in the West to reconstruct the ... More »
46. The Formation of Political Parties and the First National Elections in Russia
This is the most comprehensive analysis of the first national elections in Russia ever written. Emmons lucidly assesses all forces that favored parliamentary government, not just the much-studied Kadets and Octobrists. Because of his broad coverage of the whole of European Russia, he is able to shed new ... More »
47. The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 3, The Twentieth Century
The third volume of The Cambridge History of Russia provides an authoritative political, intellectual, social and cultural history of the trials and triumphs of Russia and the Soviet Union during the twentieth century. It encompasses not only the ethnically Russian part of the country but also the non-Russian ... More »
48. The Revolution of 1905: Russia in Disarray
"Ascher's book finally gives the events of 1905 their due in Western scholarship. . . . This is a book to be savored. It is broadly conceived to encompass the revolution 'from above' as well as 'from below,' analytically strong with a powerful and persuasive argument, and gracefully ... More »
49. The Eastern Front 1914-1917
By Norman Stone
A groundbreaking historical study, Norman Stone's The Eastern Front 1914-1917 was the very first authoritative account of the Russian Front in the First World War to be published in the West. In this now-classic history he dispels the myths surrounding a still relatively little-known aspect of the ... More »
50. Russia's First World War: A Social and Economic History
The story of Russia's First World War remains largely unknown, neglected by historians who have been more interested in the grand drama that unfolded in 1917. In Russia's First World War: A Social and Economic History Peter Gatrell shows that war is itself 'revolutionary' - rupturing established social ... More »
51. The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States
Now thoroughly revised in its second edition, The Soviet Experiment examines the complex themes of Soviet history, ranging from the last tsar of the Russian empire to the first president of the Russian republic. Author Ronald Grigor Suny, one of the most eminent Soviet historians of our time, ... More »
52. The Soviet Century
By Moshe Lewin
One hundred years after the Russian Revolution the Soviet Union remains the most extraordinary, yet tragic, attempt to create a society beyond capitalism. Yet its history was one that for a long time proved impossible to write. In The Soviet Century, Moshe Lewin follows this history in all ... More »
53. An Economic History of the USSR
By Alec Nove
This update to "The History of the Soviet Economy" covers the period from the Bolshevik seizure of power to the aftermath of the failed coup, which speeded up the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The final chapter encompasses Gorbachev's attempt to reform the old system and the failure ... More »
54. The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction
This Very Short Introduction provides an analytical narrative of the main events and developments in Soviet Russia between 1917 and 1936. It examines the impact of the revolution on society as a whole-on different classes, ethnic groups, the army, men and women, youth. Its central concern is to ... More »
55. A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924
By Orlando Figes | Used Price: 70% Off
It is history on an epic yet human scale. Vast in scope, exhaustive in original research, written with passion, narrative skill, and human sympathy, A People's Tragedy is a profound account of the Russian Revolution for a new generation. Many consider the Russian Revolution to be the most ... More »
56. February Revolution, Petrograd, 1917, The: The End of the Tsarist Regime and the Birth of Dual Power
The February Revolution, Petrograd, 1917 is the most comprehensive book on the epic uprising that toppled the tsarist monarchy and ushered in the next stage of the Russian Revolution. Hasegawa presents in detail the intense drama of the nine days of the revolution, including the workers' strike, soldiers' ... More »
57. The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917-1929
By Peter Kenez
In this comprehensive study of the early development of the Soviet propaganda system, Peter Kenez describes how the Bolshevik Party went about reaching the Russian people. Throughout this book, Kenez is more concerned with the experience of the Soviet people than with high-level politics. The book is both ... More »
58. Bandits and Partisans: The Antonov Movement in the Russian Civil War
By Erik Landis
Beginning in the fall of 1920, Aleksandr Antonov led an insurgency that became the largest armed peasant revolt against the Soviets during the civil war. Yet by the summer of 1921, the revolt had been crushed, and popular support for the movement had all but disappeared. Until now, ... More »
59. Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s
Here is a pioneeering account of everyday life under Stalin, written by one of our foremost authorities on modern Russain history. Focusing on urban areas in the 1930's, Sheila Fitzpatrick shows that with the adoption of collectivisation and the first Five Year Plan, everyday life was utterly transformed. ... More »
60. Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917-1936
When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, they believed that under socialism the family would 'wither away.' They envisioned a society in which communal dining halls, daycare centres, and public laundries would replace the unpaid labour of women in the home. Yet by 1936 legislation designed to ... More »
61. Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle
Based on meticulous research in previously unavailable documents in the Soviet archives, this compelling book illuminates the secret inner mechanisms of power in the Soviet Union during the years when Stalin established his notorious dictatorship. Oleg V. Khlevniuk focuses on the top organ in Soviet Russia's political ... More »
62. The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939
Now updated with new facts, and abridged for use in Soviet history courses, this gripping book assembles top secret Soviet documents, translated into English, from the era of Stalin's purges. The dossiers, police reports, private letters, secret transcripts, and other documents expose the hidden inner workings of the ... More »
63. The War Against the Peasantry, 1927-1930: The Tragedy of the Soviet Countryside, Volume one
By Lynne Viola
The collectivization of Soviet agriculture in the late 1920s and 1930s forever altered the country's social and economic landscape. It became the first of a series of bloody landmarks that would come to define Stalinism. This revelatory book presents-with analysis and commentary-the most important primary Soviet documents dealing ... More »
64. Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia
By Jan T. Gross
Jan Gross describes the terrors of the Soviet occupation of the lands that made up eastern Poland between the two world wars: the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. His lucid analysis of the revolution that came to Poland from abroad is based on hundreds of first-hand accounts of ... More »
65. Gulag - A History of the Soviet Camps
This landmark book uncovers for the first time in detail one of the greatest horrors of the twentieth century: the vast system of Soviet camps that were responsible for the deaths of countless millions. Gulag is the only major history in any language to draw together the ... More »
66. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror-Famine
Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow helped to reveal to the West the true and staggering human cost of the Soviet regime in its deliberate starvation of millions of peasants and remains one of the most important works of Soviet history ever written. More deaths resulted from ... More »
67. A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices, and Consumption, 1917-1953
In this sweeping study, Julie Hessler traces the invention and evolution of socialist trade, the progressive constriction of private trade, and the development of consumer habits from the 1917 revolution to Stalin's death in 1953. The book places trade and consumption in the context of debilitating economic crises. ... More »
68. Closer to the Masses: Stalinist Culture, Social Revolution, and Soviet Newspapers
In this provocative book, Matthew Lenoe traces the origins of Stalinist mass culture to newspaper journalism in the late 1920s. In examining the transformation of Soviet newspapers during the New Economic Policy and the First Five Year Plan, Lenoe tells a dramatic story of purges, political intrigues, and ... More »
69. Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934-1941
By Sarah Davies
Between 1934 and 1941 Stalin unleashed what came to be known as the 'Great Terror' against millions of Soviet citizens. The same period also saw the 'Great Retreat', the repudiation of many of the aspirations of the Russian Revolution. The response of ordinary Russians to the extraordinary events ... More »
70. Worker Resistance Under Stalin: Class and Revolution on the Shop Floor
Challenging the claim that workers supported Stalin's revolution 'from above' as well as the assumption that working-class opposition to a workers' state was impossible, Jeffrey Rossman shows how a crucial segment of the Soviet population opposed the authorities during the critical industrialising period of the First Five-Year Plan. ... More »
71. Soviet Home Front, The, 1941-1945: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II
Nowhere else was World War II as bloody and destructive as it was in Eastern Europe, and of all nations it was the Soviet Union that paid the highest price for victory. The scale of death and destruction is hard to comprehend even today. Its consequences were to ... More »
72. Ivan's War: The Red Army at War 1939-45
'Essential reading, not just for those interested in the Eastern Front, but for anyone who wants to understand Russia.' Antony Beevor, Sunday Times They died in their millions, shattered by German shells and tanks, freezing behind the wire of prison camps, driven forward in suicidal charges by ... More »
73. Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945
Thunder in the East, originally published in 2005, is widely regarded as the best short history of the entire Nazi-Soviet military conflict. It tells the story from the pre-war expectations of Hitler and Stalin, through the pivotal battles deep in Russia in 1942-43, and on to the huge ... More »
74. The Road To Berlin
A compelling account of the Red Army's epic struggle to drive the Germans out of Russia and back to Berlin. Beginning with the destruction of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, THE ROAD TO BERLIN is the story of how the Red Army drove the Germans from ... More »
75. Wings, Women, and War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat
The Soviet Union was the first nation to allow women pilots to fly combat missions. During World War II the Red Air Force formed three all-female units-grouped into separate fighter, dive bomber, and night bomber regiments-while also recruiting other women to fly with mostly male units. Their amazing ... More »
76. Stalin's Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War
The Second World War almost destroyed Stalin's Soviet Union. But victory over Nazi Germany provided the dictator with his great opportunity: to expand Soviet power way beyond the borders of the Soviet state. Well before the shooting stopped in 1945, the Soviet leader methodically set about the unprecedented ... More »
77. Russia's Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall
The phrase Cold War was coined by George Orwell in 1945 to describe the impact of the atomic bomb on world politics: "We may be heading not for a general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity." The Soviet Union, he ... More »
78. A History of the Soviet Union 1945-1991
In 1945 the U.S.S.R. was at the height of its international power and prestige, but years of prolonged hardship were to follow as Stalinist dictatorship was ruthlessly imposed. Since 1988 the mantle of Soviet secrecy has begun to lift, allowing historians access to some of the country's vast ... More »
79. Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
William Taubman's brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of one of the key figures of the Soviet Union is a study in contrasts -- how the boy from a peasant background rose to the heights of power; how a single-minded, ambitious political player survived twenty years under Stalin; how he ... More »
80. Rock and Roll in the Rocket City: The West, Identity, and Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 1960-1985
How did rock music and other products of Western culture come to pervade youth culture in Brezhnev-era Dniepropetrovsk, a Ukrainian city essentially closed to outsiders and heavily policed by the KGB? In Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, Sergei I. Zhuk assesses the impact of Westernization on ... More »
81. Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000
Featuring extensive revisions to the text as well as a new introduction and epilogue--bringing the book completely up to date on the tumultuous politics of the previous decade and the long-term implications of the Soviet collapse--this compact, original, and engaging book offers the definitive account of one of ... More »
82. Red Atom: Russias Nuclear Power Program From Stalin To Today
In the 1950s, Soviet nuclear scientists and leaders imagined a stunning future when giant reactors would generate energy quickly and cheaply, nuclear engines would power cars, ships, and airplanes, and peaceful nuclear explosions would transform the landscape. Driven by the energy of the atom, the dream of communism ... More »
83. Mass Uprisings in the USSR: Protest and Rebellion in the Post-Stalin Years
By V. A. Kozlov
Until recent times, incidents of mass unrest in the USSR were shrouded in official secrecy. Now this pioneering work by historian Vladimir A. Kozlov has opened up these hidden chapters of Soviet history. It details an astonishing variety of widespread mass protest in the post-Stalin period, including workers' ... More »
84. A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachev
While researching Russia's historical efforts to protect nature, the author unearthed a trail of documents that raised fundamental questions about the Soviet political system. These documents attested to the survival of a critical-minded, scientist-led movement through the Stalin years and beyond. Using information from the documents, it appeared ... More »
85. Bloody Saturday in the Soviet Union: Novocherkassk, 1962
This is the first complete story, long hidden by the Soviet Union, of the attack by government forces on striking workers in 1962, resulting in 21 dead and hundreds of others wounded or imprisoned. Only with the advent of glasnost in the 1980s did the tight lid of ... More »
86. Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-89
As former ambassador to Moscow, Rodric Braithwaite brings unique insights to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The story has been distorted not only by Cold War propaganda but also by the myths of the nineteenth century Great Game. It moves from the high politics of the Kremlin to ... More »
87. Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan
On October 27, 1991, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic declared its independence from the Soviet Union. Hammer and sickle gave way to a flag, a national anthem, and new holidays. Seven decades earlier, Turkmenistan had been a stateless conglomeration of tribes. What brought about this remarkable transformation? ... More »
88. The Gorbachev Factor
By Archie Brown
General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and political reformer, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and the force behind perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev was arguably the most important statesman of the twentieth century. Providing a balanced account of the complexities of politics in the U.S.S.R. during a period ... More »
89. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation
Soviet socialism was based on paradoxes that were revealed by the peculiar experience of its collapse. To the people who lived in that system the collapse seemed both completely unexpected and completely unsurprising. At the moment of collapse it suddenly became obvious that Soviet life had always seemed ... More »
90. It Was a Long Time Ago, and it Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past
By David Satter
A veteran writer on Russia and the Soviet Union explains why Russia refuses to draw from the lessons of its past and what this portends for the future Russia today is haunted by deeds that have not been examined and words that have been left unsaid. A ... More »
91. Russia's Stillborn Democracy?: From Gorbachev to Yeltsin
By Roger D. Markwick; Graeme Gill
The decade and a half since Gorbachev came to power has been a tumultuous time for Russia. It has seen the expectations raised by perestroika dashed, the collapse of the Soviet superpower, and the emergence of a new Russian state claiming to base itself on democratic, market principles. ... More »
92. Capitalism Russian-Style
For a decade Russia has been dismantling communism and building capitalism. Describing a deeply flawed fledgling market economy, Capitalism Russian-Style provides a progress report on one of the most important economic experiments going on in the world today. It describes Russian achievements in building private banks and companies, ... More »
93. Stealing the State: Control and Collapse in Soviet Institutions
What led to the breakdown of the Soviet Union? Steven Solnick argues, contrary to most current literature, that the Soviet system did not fall victim to stalemate at the top or to a revolution from below, but rather to opportunism from within. In three case studies--on the Communist ... More »
94. Russia: Re-Emerging Great Power
The authors argue that Vladimir Putin and his advisors are committed to re-establishing Russia as a great power and that the existence of nuclear weapons and the revival of the Russian economy have provided the foundations for an expanded Russian role in global affairs. More »
95. Russian Energy Policy and Military Power: Putin's Quest for Greatness
This book examines the interplay between energy policy and security policy under Vladimir Putin, and his drive to re-establish Russia's 'greatness'. Assessing the internal contradictions of this policy, the book argues that Russia's desire to strengthen its role of 'energy security' provider is undermined by its inability ... More »
96. Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin
Vladimir Putin has been Russia's dominant political figure for more than a decade, but he is a man of many identities. He likes to play roles. The images that his public relations team has orchestrated range from big game hunter to scuba diver to biker, even night club ... More »
97. A Russian Diary
By Anna Politkovskaya; Jon Snow
A Russian Diary is the book that Anna Politkovskaya had recently completed when she was murdered in a contract killing in Moscow. Covering the period from the Russian parliamentary elections of December 2003 to the tragic aftermath of the Beslan school siege in late 2005, A Russian Diary ... More »
98. Putin: Russia's Choice
The new edition of this extremely well-received political biography of Vladimir Putin builds on the strengths of the first edition to provide the most detailed and nuanced account of the man, his politics and his profound influence on Russian politics, foreign policy and society. New to this edition: More »
99. The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine
Located at the western edge of the Eurasian steppe, Ukraine has long been the meeting place of empires - Roman to Ottoman, Habsburg to Russian - and they all left their imprint on the landscape, the language and the people living within these shifting borders. In this authoritative ... More »
100. Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War
D'Anieri explores the dynamics within Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia, and between Russia and the West, that emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union and eventually led to war in 2014. Proceeding chronologically, this book shows how Ukraine's separation from Russia in 1991, at the time called ... More »
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