Russian & Soviet History

The monumental biography of the most influential leader on the world stage in the last twenty years. Magisterial - Guardian Outstanding - Ian Kershaw Vladimir Putin is a pariah to the West. Alone among world leaders, he has the power to reduce the United States and Europe to ashes in a nuclear firestorm and has threatened to do so. He...

A Book of the Year in the Daily Telegraph and Economist 'This book reads like a spy novel' Financial Times 'Entertaining and vivid' Observer 'Reads like a thriller' The Sun –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––- The astonishing story of the ten million books that were smuggled across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. For almost five decades after the Second World War, Europe...

An epic story of courage, genius and terrible folly, this is the first history of how the Soviet Union's scientists became both the glory and the laughing stock of the intellectual world. Simon Ings weaves together what happened when a handful of impoverished and underemployed graduates, professors and entrepreneurs, collectors and charlatans, bound themselves to a failing government to create...

The 1917 Revolution sent shockwaves throughout the globe, setting a chain of events in motion that would change the entire course of the 20th century. With the overthrow of the Romanov Dynasty, Russia was plunged into the political unknown and, from the crucible of social unrest, ideological conflict and violent civil war, the world’s first communist state was forged. In...

This book comprises twelve essays on Stalinism by leading international historians, whose work presents a range of interpretations regarding Stalinism's origins and consequences. In particular, the essays address the following questions: Why did the October Revolution of 1917 result not in a communist utopia but in the Stalinist dictatorship, with prison camps, bloody purges, and unprecedented state repression? Was Stalin...

The third edition of this acclaimed book offers a systematic analysis of Putin’s three wars, placing the Second Chechen War, the war with Georgia of 2008, and the current war with Ukraine in their broader historical context. Drawing on extensive original Russian sources, Marcel H. Van Herpen analyzes in detail how Putin’s wars have been prepared and conducted, and why...

For nearly two centuries, readers all over the world have turned to the great canon of Russian literature. Love and death, war and peace, yes, even crime and punishment; readers across the globe have found in Russian writing a substantial measure of intellectual provocation, aesthetic pleasure, emotional resonance, and personal solace. Why We (Still) Need Russian Literature explores the familiar...

After years of rapprochement, the relationship between Russia and the West is more strained now than it has been in the past 25 years. Putin’s motives, his reasons for seeking confrontation with the West, remain for many a mystery. Not for Mikhail Gorbachev. In this new work, Russia’s elder statesman draws on his wealth of knowledge and experience to reveal...

Why aren’t ordinary Russians more outraged by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? Inside the Kremlin’s own historical propaganda narratives, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine makes complete sense. From its World War II cult to anti-Western conspiracy theories, the Kremlin has long used myth and memory to legitimise repression at home and imperialism abroad, its patriotic history resonating with and persuading large swathes...

The sudden ending of the Cold War, surely the dominant feature of the second half of the 20th century, continues to be one of the most unexpected and perplexing events of our time. Explanations provided by the winners and losers in the Cold War differ considerably and often contradict each other. Even taken together, they do not provide a compelling...

Highly innovative and theoretically incisive, Two Lenins is the first book-length anthropological examination of how social reality can be organised around different yet concurrent ideas of time. Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov grounds his theoretical exploration in fascinating ethnographic and historical material on two Lenins: the first is the famed Soviet leader of the early twentieth century, and the second is a Siberian...

Peter Buck Feller's father disappeared in Moscow in 1938, when Feller was just six months old. As a young boy, he asked his mother about him, but his questions went invariably unanswered. Decades later, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Feller embarked on a detailed search to reclaim his father. His journey took him and his adult daughters to...

Explores how the search for meaning in the post-Soviet era has given rise to a revival of ancient spiritual traditions and a plethora of new movements Reveals the survival of ancient Slavic deities, pagan practices, and folk medicine tradition in modern Russia, including the indigenous pre-Christian customs of the Mari people and the shamanic traditions of Siberia. Examines the precursors...

The first English translation of a Kalmyk epic nearly lost to history. This is the first English translation of Jangar, the heroic epic of the Kalmyk nomads, who are the Western Mongols of Genghis Khan’s medieval empire in Europe. Today, Kalmykia is situated in the territory that was once the Golden Horde, founded by the son of Genghis Khan, Juchi....

A fascinating study of the root motivations behind the political activities and philosophies of Putin’s government in Russia “Part intellectual history, part portrait gallery... Black Wind, White Snow traces the background to Putin’s ideas with verve and clarity.” — Geoffrey Hosking, Financial Times “Required reading. This is a vivid, panoramic history of bad ideas, chasing the metastasis of the doctrine...

After years of rapprochement, the relationship between Russia and the West is more strained now than it has been in the past 25 years. Putin’s motives, his reasons for seeking confrontation with the West, remain for many a mystery. Not for Mikhail Gorbachev. In this new work, Russia’s elder statesman draws on his wealth of knowledge and experience to reveal...

The Lost Peace by Richard Sakwa is the first account of the new Cold War, revealing how today’s renewed era of global great power competition could threaten us all. Three decades after the Cold War ended, the hopes for a new and more cooperative era in world politics have been lost. With the rise of China and the resurgence of...

Commissioned by Oliver Stone in 2015 for the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Tariq Ali's captivating screenplay of the life and times of Vladimir Lenin brings one of the most exciting moments in history to life. From the author of The Dilemmas of Lenin, Ali's drama recasts the historic figures anew. From young firebrand to global revolutionary leader, Lenin remains...

A leading expert on foreign policy reveals how tensions between America, NATO, and Russia transformed geopolitics in a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2021 “Sarotte has the receipts, as it were: her authoritative tale draws on thousands of memos, letters, briefs, and other once secret documents—including many that have never been published before—which both fill in and complicate settled narratives...

In his timely new book, Mikhail Shishkin argues that Russia is not a 'riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma': we just don't know enough about it. So what is the real story behind Putin's autocratic regime and its invasion of Ukraine? In My Russia: War or Peace? Shishkin traces the roots of Russia's problems, from the 'Kievan Rus'...

Russian Machine Guns since 1945, written by noted authority Leroy Thompson, is a fully illustrated study that describes and depicts the machine guns used by Soviet and Russian troops after 1945. Following the USSR’s victory in World War II, the Soviet armed forces adopted a series of new or improved machine guns. At the squad level, the 7.62mm RPD and...

Women in the First World War and the Russian Civil War explores how Russian literature and autobiographical writing portrayed nurses, women soldiers, and commanders who served in the First World War and the Russian Civil War.Simonova’s research challenges the traditional perception of war as a masculine domain, introducing the concept of military femininities, particularly “expanded femininity,” which combines traditional feminine...

The Stakes of a Global War is a compelling collection of editorial articles spanning over two decades, from 1999 to 2025, by one of the bravest and most insightful commentators writing on Russia today, Andrei Piontkovsky. This powerful work dissects the rise of "Putinism" and its profound impact on Russia and the world stage.Piontkovsky, a Russian scientist and political writer,...

With the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s Russia seems to have stepped out of time, reverting to an imperial era of conquest and expansion. But as Roger Reese points out in this comprehensive new history, Russia’s way of war has changed little from one century to the next, one regime to another, from the army of the tsar to the...

This timely text charts the metamorphosis of Russian media and culture in the 21st century. It considers how, when Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, Russia's media and culture industry had enjoyed nearly a decade of almost unrestricted freedom. Yet, by the time he launched his illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia's independent media was crushed, while the...

Rebel Russia by Anna Arutunyan delves into the fascinating saga of Russian rebels such as Navalny, Lenin, and Pugachev, who have captivated readers and writers for decades with their epic battles against the Leviathan of the Russian state. The rebel’s story often culminates in exile, imprisonment, or martyrdom, planting seeds for future reform against the very Leviathan they challenged. Why...

“Moving and illuminating.” - The Washington Post In Displaced, Russian journalist Valery Panyushkin chronicles the devastating impact of his country's invasion of Ukraine. By uncovering the stories of ordinary Ukrainians thrust into the chaos of war and transformed overnight from citizens into victims and refugees, Panyushkin sheds light on the brutal crimes committed by the Russian regime and offers a...

In Displaced, Russian journalist Valery Panyushkin chronicles the devastating impact of his country's invasion of Ukraine. By uncovering the stories of ordinary Ukrainians thrust into the chaos of war, and transformed overnight from citizens into victims and refugees, Panyushkin sheds light on the brutal crimes committed by the Russian regime, and offers a necessary act of truth-telling and atonement. Reporting...

‘A towering achievement’ MERVE EMRE NYT Best New Books of 2026 A majestic cultural and environmental history that reveals how forests have made – and resisted – Russia’s many empires. From the Baltic to the Pacific, from the Arctic to the Steppes of Central Asia, Russia’s forests account for nearly one-fifth of the world’s wooded lands. The Oak and the...

When a twenty-year-old Ukrainian arrived in London as a candidate for the position of secret agent in Britain's Secret Intelligence Bureau, the chiefs of what would one day become MI5 were wise to hire him, as he would become Britain's greatest spy, a man known by several names.His ingenuity and his mastery of the trade, and his audacity and coolness...

A fascinating, bottom-up exploration of contemporary Russian politics that sheds new light on why Putin’s grip on power is more fragile than we think. Putin vs. the People wrestles with perhaps the central conundrum of contemporary Russia: the endurance of support for Putin amid deepening disillusionment with the present and pessimism about the future.”—Daniel Beer, The Guardian What do ordinary...

‘A brilliant book’ Alastair Campbell, The Rest is Politics'The essential, must-read insider account of the West’s cat and mouse economic warfare against Russia and how it is changing the face of global trade. Magisterial and gripping’ Catherine Belton‘A brilliant, engagingly written and timely book’ Owen Matthews‘A very good book’ Mark Galeotti Undeterred by eight years of timid US sanctions, Vladimir...

Winner of the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History, this dramatic new account of the dawn of modern East Asia places Korea at the centre of a transformed world order wrought by imperial greed and devastating wars. In the nineteenth century, Russia participated in two "great games." One, well known, pitted the tsar's empire against Britain in Central Asia....

An original history of Russia's thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin's politics and rekindled the Cold War.Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has reshaped history. In the decades after the collapse of Soviet communism, the West convinced itself that liberal democracy would henceforth be the dominant, ultimately unique, system of governance - a hubris that...

What do you do when your country becomes a repressive authoritarian state? 2014- Russia prepares to host the Winter Olympics. Russia invades Crimea. Putin is re-elected president. Several political prisoners are amnestied and released early from prison. Maria Alyokhina is among them. She had spent two years in a penal colony after performing the punk prayer 'Virgin Mary, Banish Putin'...

Inspired by the life of Florence Nightingale, this literary gem is part historical fiction, part ghost story, and utterly original. Mayfair, 1910. At the age of ninety, Florence Nightingale is frail and no longer of sound mind. After a storied career as a nurse, writer, and statistician, she now leads a reclusive existence. One summer evening, she is astonished to...

How Russia Got Big accounts for Russia's changing physical scope over some seven centuries. Even people who know little about Russia know that it is big. This concise book tells the story of how it became so. Beginning with the small principality of Moscow in the early 14th century, Paul W. Werth recounts the construction of the world's largest country—from...

A masterful history of how war and insecurity, both real and perceived, have driven Russia’s destiny for centuries, including the disastrous invasion of Ukraine. Putin retains his stranglehold on his position in Russia despite an almost ruinous invasion of Ukraine. The answer as to how and why can be found in Russian history. With no naturally defensible borders, and environmental...

An incisive and engaging account of post-Soviet Russia—showing how and why the country has come into confrontation with the West The escalation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 triggered the most violent conflict seen on European soil for decades. Millions of people have been displaced, and thousands killed. As the conflict continues, many in the West are seeking...

Russia's attack on Ukraine marks an epochal break in European and global history. Undoubtedly, the decision to go to war is closely linked to one person, Vladimir Putin, but Russia's war is not driven solely by one man's power calculations. We can only make sense of Russia's actions in Ukraine, argues the distinguished historian Martin Schulze Wessel, by putting them...

A thrilling new biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky—composer of some of the world's most popular orchestral and theatrical music. "A lively, argumentative and thoughtful reflection on one of the 19th century's most important musical figures." —Michael O'Donnell, Wall Street Journal Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive,...

In December 1994, having received assurances within the Budapest Memorandum agreement that its sovereignty would be respected and secured by Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, Ukraine gave up the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world and joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, endowing the nonproliferation regime with substantial momentum. Based on original and heretofore...

The Russo-Ukraine War is a vital learning opportunity for military strategists across the globe. The first and clearest lesson to be gleaned from it is this: the soundness of a military's strategy and the nimbleness with which it can adapt to unforeseen circumstances are the two most important factors in deciding victory or defeat. The War for Ukraine analyzes the...

As in many postcommunist states, politics in Ukraine revolves around the issue of national identity. Ukrainian nationalists see themselves as one of the world’s oldest and most civilised peoples, as “older brothers” to the younger Russian culture. Yet Ukraine became independent only in 1991, and Ukrainians often feel like a minority in their own country, where Russian is still the...

A vivid and intimate account of the Ukrainian Revolution, the rare moment when the political became the existential. "Shore brilliantly captures the contingency, uncertainty, and chaos that was transmuted into the remarkable, seemingly transcendent solidarity of the Maidan's unified resistance to a corrupt and cruel régime." — Charles Taylor, professor emeritus of philosophy, McGill University What is worth dying for?...

An original investigation into the reading strategies and uses of books by Jews in the Soviet era. In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf, Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimised, reading uniquely provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was...

Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, its legacy and the accompanying Russian-American tension continue to loom large. Russia’s access to detailed information on the United States and its allies may not seem so shocking in this day of data clouds and leaks, but long before we had satellite imagery of any neighbourhood at a finger’s reach,...

Once you accept that the impossible is really possible, what happens in Russia makes perfect sense. "A few pages into David Satter’s truly terrifying book, one realises that his title is smack-on accurate: modern Russia is a frightening member of the world community to an extent of which most persons are blissfully unaware."—Joseph C. Goulden, Washington Times "Satter...persuasively supplies evidence...

Celebrated food scholar Darra Goldstein takes readers on a vivid tour of history and culture through Russian cuisine. The Kingdom of Rye unearths the foods and flavours of the Russian land. Preeminent food studies scholar Darra Goldstein offers readers a concise, engaging, and gorgeously crafted story of Russian cuisine and culture. This story demonstrates how national identity is revealed through...

Celebrated food scholar Darra Goldstein takes readers on a vivid tour of history and culture through Russian cuisine. The Kingdom of Rye unearths the foods and flavours of the Russian land. Preeminent food studies scholar Darra Goldstein offers readers a concise, engaging, and gorgeously crafted story of Russian cuisine and culture. This story demonstrates how national identity is revealed through...

The Frontline presents a selection of essays drawn together for the first time to form a companion volume to Serhii Plokhy's The Gates of Europe and Chernobyl. Here, he expands upon his analysis in earlier works of key events in Ukrainian history, including Ukraine's complex relations with Russia and the West, the burden of tragedies such as the Holodomor and...

The Frontline presents a selection of essays drawn together for the first time to form a companion volume to Serhii Plokhy's The Gates of Europe and Chernobyl. Here, he expands upon his analysis in earlier works of key events in Ukrainian history, including Ukraine's complex relations with Russia and the West, the burden of tragedies such as the Holodomor and...

Looking two hundred years in the past, an enlightening study of the neglected liberal tradition in Russian political thought with resonance for today. On December 14, 1825, a group of young Russian army officers led three thousand troops to Senate Square in St. Petersburg, aiming to force the senate to adopt a liberal constitution and transform the Russian Empire. The...

The Collector is a fascinating biography detailing the life of Sergei Shchukin, the great collector who transformed Russia’s art world. Sergei Shchukin was not only a highly successful textiles merchant in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but he also possessed an extraordinary eye for beauty. Shchukin was one of the first to appreciate the quality of the Impressionists...

In this overview of the Baltic region from the Vikings to the European Union, Michael North presents the sea and the lands that surround it as a Nordic Mediterranean, a maritime zone of shared influence, with its own distinct patterns of trade, cultural exchange, and conflict. Covering over a thousand years in a part of the world where seas have...

The extraordinary true story of Polish-Jewish child refugees who escaped the Nazis and found refuge in Iran. More than a million Jews escaped east from Nazi-occupied Poland to Soviet-occupied Poland. There, they suffered extreme deprivation in Siberian gulags and “Special Settlements” and then, once “liberated,” journeyed to the Soviet Central Asian Republics. The majority of Polish Jews who survived the...

A compelling intellectual biography of Stalin told through his personal library In this engaging life of the twentieth century’s most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he read them, and what they taught him. Stalin firmly believed in the transformative potential of words, and his voracious appetite for reading guided him throughout his years. A...

A compelling intellectual biography of Stalin told through his personal library "[A] fascinating new study."—Michael O'Donnell, Wall Street Journal In this engaging life of the twentieth century's most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he read them, and what they taught him. Stalin firmly believed in the transformative potential of words, and his voracious appetite...

A penetrating look into the extreme plutocracy Vladimir Putin has created and its implications for Russia’s future “Full of insight and informed judgment, former diplomat Anders Åslund takes aim at the ‘authoritarian kleptocracy’ and the inner circles of power.”—John Lloyd, Financial Times This insightful study explores how the economic system Vladimir Putin has developed in Russia works to consolidate control...

A history of relations between Britain and Russia from the nineteenth century to the present. With Riddle, Mystery, and Enigma, statesman and author David Owen tells the story of Britain’s relationship with Russia, which has been surprisingly underexplored. Through his characteristic insight and expertise, he depicts a relationship governed by principle as often as by suspicion, expediency, and necessity. When...

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a bloody escalation of a conflict that had begun eight years earlier. What drove Vladimir Putin to launch Europe's largest land war since World War II? Lucian Kim—an on-the-ground reporter in the region for decades—offers a gripping, definitive account of Russia's path to war, from Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Maidan...

How succession in authoritarian regimes was less a competition of visions for the future and more a settling of scores “Joseph Torigian’s stellar research and personal interviews have produced a brilliant, meticulous study. It fundamentally undermines what political scientists have presumed to be the way Chinese Communist and Soviet politics operate.”—Dorothy J. Solinger, University of California, Irvine The political successions...

So shattering were the aftereffects of Kishinev, the rampage that broke out in late-Tsarist Russia in April 1903, that one historian remarked it was "nothing less than a prototype for the Holocaust itself." In three days of violence, 49 Jews were killed and 600 raped or wounded, while more than 1,000 Jewish-owned houses and stores were ransacked and destroyed. Recounted...

A pioneering examination of history, current affairs, and daily life along the Russia–China border, one of the world's least understood and most politically charged frontiers. The border between Russia and China winds for 2,600 miles through rivers, swamps, and vast taiga forests. It's a thin line of direct engagement, extraordinary contrasts, frequent tension, and occasional war between two of the...

Why aren’t ordinary Russians more outraged by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? Inside the Kremlin’s own historical propaganda narratives, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine makes complete sense. From its World War II cult to anti-Western conspiracy theories, the Kremlin has long used myth and memory to legitimise repression at home and imperialism abroad, its patriotic history resonating with and persuading large swathes...

This book recounts one of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century: the siege of Leningrad. It is based on the searing testimony of eyewitnesses, some of whom managed to survive, while others were to die in streets devastated by bombing, in icy houses, or the endless bread queues. All of them, nevertheless, wanted to pass on to us the...

Despite decades of outstanding writing about the Holocaust, the full story of roughly a quarter million Jews who survived Nazi extermination in the Soviet interior, Central Asia, and the Middle East is nearly unknown, even to their descendants. Investigating her late father's mysterious identity as a Tehran Child, literary scholar Mikhal Dekel delved deep into archives—including Soviet files not previously...

A lively, inside account of Putin’s years of rule and the impending crisis that threatens his tsar-like regime “A beautifully written and very lively study of Russia that argues that the political order created by Vladimir Putin is stagnating—undermined by corruption and a failure to modernise economically.”—Gideon Rachman, Financial Times "Ben Judah, a young freelance writer, paints a more journalistic—and...

Whales and walruses, caribou and fox, gold and oil: through the stories of these animals and resources, Bathsheba Demuth reveals how people have turned ecological wealth in a remote region into economic growth and state power for more than 150 years. The first-ever comprehensive history of Beringia, the Arctic land and waters stretching from Russia to Canada, Floating Coast breaks...

Whales and walruses, caribou and fox, gold and oil: through the stories of these animals and resources, Bathsheba Demuth reveals how people have turned ecological wealth in a remote region into economic growth and state power for more than 150 years. The first-ever comprehensive history of Beringia, the Arctic land and waters stretching from Russia to Canada, Floating Coast breaks...

Emancipation by Peter Kolchin is a sequel to his landmark study, offering a comparison between the transition to freedom after American emancipation and the Russian Great Reforms. An enlightening comparative history. . . . Often revelatory for those who may think of the emancipation of enslaved Americans as an almost unique event."—Fergus M. Bordewich, Wall Street Journal The two largest...

China and Russia offers a compelling, expansive history of the relationship between these two global giants, spanning from the seventeenth century to the present day. Russia and China, the largest and most populous countries in the world, respectively, have maintained a delicate relationship for four centuries. In addition to a four-thousand-kilometre border, they have periodically shared a common outlook on...

The first major English-language history of Ukraine from its emergence after the demise of the Soviet Union through the current Russian invasion. "A fascinating and highly informative narrative."—Arthur Herman, Wall Street Journal In 1991, after seventy years of imperial Soviet rule, Ukraine became an independent country. Since 2022, it has been fighting an existential war against an unprovoked, brutal, and...

The recent murder of Anna Politkovskaya is grim evidence of the danger faced by journalists passionately committed to writing the truth about wars and politics. A longtime critic of the Russian government, particularly with regard to its policies in Chechnya, Politkovskaya was a special correspondent for the liberal Moscow newspaper Novaya gazeta. Beginning in 1999, Politkovskaya authored numerous articles about...

Provides an all-encompassing look at the history of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia Beginning with the breakup of the Mongol Empire in the mid-thirteenth century, Volume II of this comprehensive work covers the remarkable history of “Inner Eurasia,” from 1260 up to modern times, completing the story begun in Volume I. Volume II describes how agriculture spread through Inner Eurasia,...

A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, Volume I is a comprehensive history that spans the region from the time of its first inhabitants up to the breakup of the Mongol Empire in 1260 AD. The author, David Christian, defines Inner Eurasia as comprising most of the former Soviet Union, Russia's vast Siberian territories, Russia's former empire in Central...

"Scholarly, intellectually stimulating, and readable. It is not only a very good guide through the record of Russian development, but it makes one go deeper by the way it raises interesting questions."—Frederick C. Barghoorn Generally recognised as the standard one-volume history of Russia, this monumental work describes Russia's growth from the times of the nomadic tribes to the Cold War....

A different level of insight to anything I’ve read for a long time about Russia. - Sophy Roberts, author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia Exquisitely observed. Full of empathy, Amos refuses easy stereotypes. - Tom Parfitt, author of High Caucasus Truly kaleidoscopic and unique in its reach, this is a superbly written and unusual book - Caroline Eden, author...

'A salve for our current reactionary times.' ANDREW HARTMAN The gripping, untold story of how six epic journeys launched the three communist revolutions that changed world history forever. From the streets of Petrograd during the heady autumn of 1917, to Mao's stunning victory in October 1949, and Fidel's triumphant arrival in Havana in January 1959, the history of the twentieth...

The biblical image of David and Goliath fittingly captures the nature of the war that Russia, the world's largest country by surface area, unleashed on neighbouring Ukraine. While Ukraine is the largest country on the European continent, it is almost thirty times smaller than Russia and has only over a quarter of Russia's population. Yet, Ukraine's stubborn resistance proves that...