Russia Books - Page 3

The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (P.S.)

Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The best book I have read in years! A real eye-opener. 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

For any who have any nostalgia for the Soviet Union, this book should put it to rest. This book is hard to categorize; it is more than one man's opinion, but less than an objective history. It is, as Solzhenitsyn puts it, "an experiment in literary investigation": a combination memoir and dissertation on the evils of Communism and its inevitable product, the forced labor camp. Some have criticized Solzhenitsyn as an anti-Communist/pro-Western polemicist, but that is not an accurate description. He is a realist, showing not only the faults of Communists, but also those of the West and Western leaders. This should be required reading for European and world history classes. Volume 1 (of 3) describes the arrest and interrogation procedures, as well as life in the Gulag.

Aleksandr is The Great 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This is vintage Solzhenitsyn; his brilliant mind shines forth splendidly. A book that is difficult to put down, places one inside his mind to see what he describes, so much from having spent hours memorizing while in the camps so he could later give us a glimpse of the horror that millions upon millions of human beings endured.

Editorial Review:

Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society

Nicholas and Alexandra

Robert K. Massie

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 108 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Among my Top 20 Books 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I read this book many years ago and have never forgotten it, and I just recently purchased a copy of my own. Robert Massie is an excellent writer who makes this book memorable for the fun and loving family that the Romanovs were and their terrible, tragic end. I'm now collecting more books on the Romanov dynasty and the individual people who made up this fascinating family. For anyone with an interest, this is the place to start.

best book on royal couple 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

nicholas and alexandra should never had become czar and crazina of russia.nicholas was just to weak spirit and alexandra to strong without know the real russia people.she saw russian as childern who needed to be told how to run their lives by the papa czar.she hide her son illness and brought in a sexual twisted man of god into her family,ruin the romanov's relationship with it's people.stopping changes that would give citzen russian say in their country.in the end the people turn on the romanov's every thing end tragical.

Editorial Review:

Massie offers a moving, tragic, and unforgettable account of the extraordinary Imperial dynasty of Tsar Nicholas II, his doomed empire, and a revolution that would inexorably change the world forever. "A larger than life drama."--Saturday Review. Photo insert.

In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching (Harvest Book)

P. D. Ouspensky

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Total reviews: 65 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A new edition of the groundbreaking spiritual treasure, with a foreword by bestselling author Marianne Williamson .Since its original publication in 1949, In Search of the Miraculous has been hailed as the most valuable and reliable documentation of G. I. Gurdjieff's thoughts and universal view. This historic and influential work is considered by many to be a primer of mystical thought as expressed through the Work, a combination of Eastern philosophies that had for centuries been passed on orally from teacher to student. Gurdjieff's goal, to introduce the Work to the West, attracted many students, among them Ouspensky, an established mathematician, journalist, and, with the publication of In Search of the Miraculous, an eloquent and persuasive proselyte.Ouspensky describes Gurdjieff's teachings in fascinating and accessible detail, providing what has proven to be a stellar introduction to the universal view of both student and teacher. It goes without saying that In Search of the Miraculous has inspired great thinkers and writers of ensuing spiritual movements, including Marianne Williamson, the highly acclaimed author of A Return to Love and Illuminata. In a new and never-before-published foreword, Williamson shares the influence of Ouspensky's book and Gurdjieff's teachings on the New Thought movement and her own life, providing a contemporary look at an already timeless classic.

The Cold War: A New History

John Lewis Gaddis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 65 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Well researched but offers nothing new 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Gaddis offers a concise, readable, and well-documented history of the Cold War. What he does not offer us is a "new" history, as the title promises. This book helped fill in some blanks about the most dangerous period of our history, but I didn't set the book down thinking I had a strongly different view on the event then I could have got from other sources.

I liked how the book allowed you to get in the heads of the various U.S. presidents, and see how they thought about the war--sometimes counterintuitively. However, it seemed like there were things left out. Cambodia is mentioned only in passing on the last page, even though communism hit that country harder than any other, arguably.

The book does seem titled to the idea that the U.S. was the morally superior of the two sides, though Gaddis does not shy away from the darker moments of U.S. geopolitics in the Cold War.

Oddly enough, I walked away hoping that there would be more, not less, retrospective analysis. Just how close was the Soviet Union to collapsing before Reagan took office? Just what might have happened if the United States had not "faught" the Cold War and let the Soviet Union expand and collapse on its own? Normally, scholars tend to get too far out on hypotheticals, but here I find myself wishing he would have spent a little more time on them.

Editorial Review:

The "dean of Cold War historians" (The New York Times) now presents the definitive account of the global confrontation that dominated the last half of the twentieth century. Drawing on newly opened archives and the reminiscences of the major players, John Lewis Gaddis explains not just what happened but why—from the months in 1945 when the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. went from alliance to antagonism to the barely averted holocaust of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the maneuvers of Nixon and Mao, Reagan and Gorbachev. Brilliant, accessible, almost Shakespearean in its drama, The Cold War stands as a triumphant summation of the era that, more than any other, shaped our own.

The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II

Andrew Nagorski

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 49 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The battle for Moscow was the biggest battle of World War II -- the biggest battle of all time. And yet it is far less known than Stalingrad, which involved about half the number of troops. From the time Hitler launched his assault on Moscow on September 30, 1941, to April 20, 1942, seven million troops were engaged in this titanic struggle. The combined losses of both sides -- those killed, taken prisoner or severely wounded -- were 2.5 million, of which nearly 2 million were on the Soviet side. But the Soviet capital narrowly survived, and for the first time the German Blitzkrieg ended in failure. This shattered Hitler's dream of a swift victory over the Soviet Union and radically changed the course of the war.

The full story of this epic battle has never been told because it undermines the sanitized Soviet accounts of the war, which portray Stalin as a military genius and his people as heroically united against the German invader. Stalin's blunders, incompetence and brutality made it possible for German troops to approach the outskirts of Moscow. This triggered panic in the city -- with looting, strikes and outbreaks of previously unimaginable violence. About half the city's population fled. But Hitler's blunders would soon loom even larger: sending his troops to attack the Soviet Union without winter uniforms, insisting on an immediate German reign of terror and refusing to heed his generals' pleas that he allow them to attack Moscow as quickly as possible. In the end, Hitler's mistakes trumped Stalin's mistakes.

Drawing on recently declassified documents from Soviet archives, including files of the dreaded NKVD; on accounts of survivors and of children of top Soviet military and government officials; and on reports of Western diplomats and correspondents, The Greatest Battle finally illuminates the full story of a clash between two systems based on sheer terror and relentless slaughter.

Even as Moscow's fate hung in the balance, the United States and Britain were discovering how wily a partner Stalin would turn out to be in the fight against Hitler -- and how eager he was to push his demands for a postwar empire in Eastern Europe. In addition to chronicling the bloodshed, Andrew Nagorski takes the reader behind the scenes of the early negotiations between Hitler and Stalin, and then between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill.

This is a remarkable addition to the history of World War II.

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943

Antony Beevor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 244 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This gripping history is the definitive account of the battle that shifted the tide of World War II.

Historians and reviewers worldwide have hailed Antony Beevor's magisterial Stalingrad as the definitive account of World War II's most harrowing battle. In August 1942, Hitler's huge Sixth Army reached the city that bore Stalin's name. In the five month siege that followed, the Russians fought to hold Stalingrad at any cost, then caught their Nazi enemy in an astonishing reversal.

As never before, Stalingrad conveys the experience of soldiers on both sides as they fought in inhuman conditions, and of civilians trapped on an urban battlefield. Antony Beevor has interviewed survivors and discovered completely new material in a wide range of German and Soviet archives, including reports of prisoner interrogations, desertions, and executions. The battle of Stalingrad was the psychological turning point of World War II; as Beevor makes clear, it also changed the face of modern warfare. As a story of cruelty, courage, and human suffering, Stalingrad is unprecedented and unforgettable.
"A fantastic and sobering story . . . fully and authoritatively told." -Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

Peter the Great

Robert K. Massie

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 104 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A Detailed but Infinitely Readable Biography of a fascinating Man. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

In short, I am an amateur historian of Russian history and found this biography to be very detailed, thoroughly researched biograaphy while at the same time reading as a top notch novel. I can't recommend it more. If you are interested in the man, this transitional period in Russian history or are after a great read, you won't be disappointed. Enjoy!

A masterpiece of Russian history 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Massie's work of Russian history is one of the fines biographies I have ever read. It keeps interest start to finish. It never gets boring at all, and that is important since the book is over 800 pages! Massie delves into the experience that made the man who is Tsar Peter The Great, yet at no time does it ever let down. It is exciting, readable, and very human. I enjoy Massie's book, and I intend to read more of his works

Editorial Review:

"Enthralling...As fascinating as any novel and more so than most!"
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Against the monumental canvas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and Russia, unfolds the magnificent story of Peter the Great. He brought Russia from the darkness of its own Middle Ages into the Enlightenment and transformed it into the power that has its legacy in the Russia of our own century.

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

Simon Sebag Montefiore

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 87 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The History of a Monster 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

In the pantheon of the 20th century's most heinous individuals, Joseph Stalin would be prominently placed along with Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot. Stalin was a truly repulsive individual who brought death and misery to millions. To think that he should deserve some accolades for industrialising the Soviet Union is historical blindness of the greatest degree. He was simply a repugnant monster.

Simon Sebag Montefiore has told the tale of Stalin as a riveting piece of history. You may ask if there is anything new about Stalin to be told. Well, the short answer is that much has been learned in recent years. Montefiore was given unparalleled access to Russian records and has a keen eye for detail. Indeed, it is remarkable that such records even exist. Yet it seems that the Soviets were, if nothing else, diligent keeps of files. Montefiore has unearthed a veritable treasure trove.

Stalin was a man of immense paranoia. In his life, he trusted no one except, ironically, Adolph Hitler. Right up to the last moment, he was convinced that Hitler would keep his word and leave the Soviet Union in peace. When Hitler's word was broken, Stalin nearly collapsed. Yet, everyone else was a danger, real or perceived. The bloodletting that this unleashed in the 1930s has few parallels in history. But for all this carnage, Stalin was able to live a life cut short only by natural death. He created fear in his people and his immediate colleagues. He used this fear as a weapon. He was utterly remorseless.

Simon Sebag Montefiori's book is a master piece. It is a superlative piece of historical writing and biography. Not with standing the repugnance of the subject, this book is great reading. I thoroughly recommend it to all interested in understanding one of the great figures of the twentieth century.

Editorial Review:

This widely acclaimed biography provides a vivid and riveting account of Stalin and his courtiers—killers, fanatics, women, and children—during the terrifying decades of his supreme power. In a seamless meshing of exhaustive research and narrative ?lan, Simon Sebag Montefiore gives us the everyday details of a monstrous life.

We see Stalin playing his deadly game of power and paranoia at debauched dinners at Black Sea villas and in the apartments of the Kremlin. We witness first-hand how the dictator and his magnates carried out the Great Terror and the war against the Nazis, and how their families lived in this secret world of fear, betrayal, murder, and sexual degeneracy. Montefiore gives an unprecedented understanding of Stalin’s dictatorship, and a Stalin as human and complicated as he is brutal.

Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Robert F. Kennedy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

AS WE APPROACH IN HALF A YEAR THE FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS FBI ASSASSINATION LET US RECALL WHEN WISDOM AND DIPLOMACY RULED 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Here we have in Robert Kennedy's own account how the world kept out of annihilating nuclear warfare nearly a half century ago, rather than the current highly profitable rushes to war with untold, uncounted millions of innocent victims these past few decades.

Here we can read how true, wise, competent and democratically elected national leaders kept us out of war, Averting 'The Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings (Stanford Nuclear Age Series).

The only lamentable sectio of this chronicle may be, as ever, Schlesinger's introduction. The rest let us read and pray once more for leaders of peace and morality, not of corrupt as profitable war-mongering.

There are several accounts of those thirteen days, and films. Let us best begin with this book.

Editorial Review:

The unique, gripping account of the perilous showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union. During the thirteen days in October 1962 when the United States confronted the Soviet Union over its installation of missiles in Cuba, few people shared the behind-the-scenes story as it is told here by the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. In a clear and simple record, he describes the personalities involved in the crisis, with particular attention to the actions and attitudes of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. He describes the daily, even hourly, exchanges between Russian representatives and American. In firsthand immediacy we see the frightening responsibility of two great nations holding the fate of the world in their hands.

Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia

Marshall I. Goldman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the aftermath of the financial collapse of August 1998, it looked as if Russia's day as a superpower had come and gone. That it should recover and reassert itself after less than a decade is nothing short of an economic and political miracle.
Based on extensive research, including several interviews with Vladimir Putin, this revealing book chronicles Russia's dramatic reemergence on the world stage, illuminating the key reason for its rebirth: the use of its ever-expanding energy wealth to reassert its traditional great power ambitions. In his deft, informative narrative, Marshall Goldman traces how this has come to be, and how Russia is using its oil-based power as a lever in world politics. The book provides an informative overview of oil in Russia, traces Vladimir Putin's determined effort to reign in the upstart oil oligarchs who had risen to power in the post-Soviet era, and describes Putin's efforts to renationalize and refashion Russia's industries into state companies and his vaunted "national champions" corporations like Gazprom, largely owned by the state, who do the bidding of the state. Goldman shows how Russia paid off its international debt and has gone on to accumulate the world's third largest holdings of foreign currency reserves--all by becoming the world's largest producer of petroleum and the world's second largest exporter. Today, Vladimir Putin and his cohort have stabilized the Russian economy and recentralized power in Moscow, and fossil fuels (oil and natural gas) have made it all possible.
The story of oil and gas in Russia is a tale of discovery, intrigue, corruption, wealth, misguidance, greed, patronage, nepotism, and power. Marshall Goldman tells this story with panache, as only one of the world's leading authorities on Russia could.