Russian & Soviet History

The Forgotten Soldier is an international bestseller that presents a German soldier's first-hand account of life on the Russian front during the second half of World War II. When Guy Sajer joins the infantry, full of ideals in the summer of 1942, the German army is enjoying unparalleled success in Russia. However, he quickly discovers that for the foot soldier,...

A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union begins its countdown. From the steppes of Kazakhstan, the first human—Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin—launches into space. In that moment, another countdown begins. How could it be that a single generation—just three decades—would separate the USSR's crowning achievement from the collapse of the Soviet empire? More than...

Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews "This is the essential backstory, the history book that you need if you want to understand modern Russia and its wars with Ukraine, with its neighbours, with America, and with the West." --Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy and Red Famine From "the great storyteller...

As expansionist empires, socialist superpowers, and authoritarian regimes, China and Russia have much in common. While many in the West fear the formation of an authoritarian alliance between these two great powers, and while Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping call themselves 'good friends', the geopolitical interests of Beijing and Moscow are often at odds with each other. They may be...

From the first Slavic migrations to the Romanovs' rise to the Putin era, Russia has endured for centuries as a nation whose sheer size and diversity have challenged its rulers and shaped its identity. Restless Empire illuminates the epic sweep of Russian history in a beautifully illustrated full-colour atlas depicting the essential cultural, political, economic, and military developments of Russia's...

For many, the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a symbol of hope. In the eyes of its critics, however, Soviet authoritarianism and the horrors of the gulags have led to the revolution becoming synonymous with oppression, threatening to forever taint the very idea of socialism. The experience of Georgia, which declared its independence from Russia in 1918, tells a different...

It was the 1917 Russian Revolution that transformed the scale of The Communist Manifesto, making it the key text for socialists everywhere. On the centenary of this upheaval, this volume pairs Marx and Engels’s most famous work with Lenin’s own revolutionary manifesto, “The April Theses,” which lifts politics from the level of everyday banalities to become an art-form. The Communist...

Eight years after annexing Crimea, Russia embarked on a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Vladimir Putin viewed this attack on a neighbour as a legacy-defining mission, which sought to restore a central element of Russia's sphere of influence and undo Ukraine's surprisingly resilient democratic experiment. These aspirations were swiftly eviscerated, as the conflict degenerated into a bloody war...

From acclaimed historian and author of Kremlin Winter and Blood on the Snow, a dramatic and expertly researched account of an extraordinary moment in Russia's recent history: The August Coup. In the summer of 1991, a group of eight plotters came together to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachëv, then the president of the USSR. These ruthless conspirators, who occupied positions of high...

Richard Sorge is one of history's most famous spies. This hard-drinking, womanising, motorcycle-crashing Soviet officer penetrated the German embassy in Tokyo during the 1930s and gathered intelligence credited with changing the course of the Second World War. It is an intriguing tale; but Sorge's spy ring was just one chapter in a much longer history of Russian and Soviet espionage...

Between 1917 and 1921, a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. Many regard this savage civil war as the most influential event of the modern era. An incompatible White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky's Red Army and Lenin's single-minded Communist dictatorship. Terror begat terror, which in...

The Financial Times – Best books of 2022: Politics 'The prolific military chronicler and analyst Mark Galeotti has produced exactly the right book at the right time.' The Times A new history of how Putin and his conflicts have inexorably reshaped Russia, including his devastating invasion of Ukraine. Written by one of the world’s leading experts on modern Russia, Putin’s...

The issues that are the most and the least divisive in Russia The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 created a new Russia, with new territorial boundaries and new political and economic systems. The hybrid political economy that emerged incorporated commitments to markets and democracy that were undermined by the state's economic interventions and authoritarian restrictions. In this book,...

On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction unfolds in The House of Government. This book is unlike any other about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment. Written in the tradition of Tolstoy's War and Peace, Grossman's Life and Fate, and Solzhenitsyn's The...

A dramatic new telling of the dawn of modern East Asia, placing 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. The other, hitherto unrecognised but no less significant, saw Russia,...

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 simultaneously eternal and stagnating, vigorous and ailing, bleak and full of promise....

'A carefully researched and hugely readable account of the build-up to war, the momentum inexorably growing as he assembles each part of the jigsaw. Indeed, his narrative is so persuasive that by the time you are about two-thirds through, it takes some effort to remind yourself that the Third World War never happened' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 1983 was a...

Lindsey Hughes, author of the classic account of Russia during the reign of Peter the Great, here provides the definitive shorter biography of this dramatic, appealing, and unconventional character. Peter the Great tells the story of Peter the Great (1672-1725) from birth to death in twelve chapters, including two final chapters on his legacy and posthumous reputation, with the aim...

The first comprehensive political history of the communist party, Vanguard of the Revolution is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power. A. James McAdams argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking...

When Stalin came to power, making music in Russia became dangerous. Composers now had to create work that served the socialist state, and all artistic production was scrutinised for potential subversion. In The Sound of Utopia, Michel Krielaars vividly depicts Soviet musicians and composers struggling to create art in a climate of risk, suspicion, and fear. Some successfully toed the...

‘[R]eadable and thoughtful . . . does an excellent job of exploring how the murderous political police in all its incarnations defined the Soviet Union, and left a poisonous legacy still with us today’ Professor Mark Galeotti, author of The Vory and A Short History of Russia Repression, control, manipulation and elimination of enemies assisted in the establishment of the...

An expert account of the development, role, and capabilities of the S-300 and S-400 air defence missile systems, key strategic weapons in Putin's Russia. Few modern missile systems have had such significance as the S-300 family. Highly regarded technically, Russia’s most powerful air-defense systems have been a major strategic asset to the country, exported to major powers around the world,...

The Russian Civil War of 1917-1920, out of which the Soviet Union was born, was one of the most significant events of the twentieth century. The collapse of the Tsarist regime and the failure of the Kerensky Provisional Government nearly led to the complete disintegration of the Russian state. This book, however, is not simply the story of that collapse...

This book is the first to offer a concise, accessible overview of the evolution of the Soviet Union as a multiethnic empire. It reflects on how the Soviet Union was home to many ethnic minorities, and how their fates, and that of the USSR itself, were bound to the question of how the Soviet state responded variously throughout its existence...

The Empire Must Die portrays the vivid drama of Russia's brief and exotic experiment with civil society before it was swept away by the despotism of the Communist Revolution. The window between two equally stifling autocracies—the imperial family and the communists—was open only briefly, from the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of World War...

This volume is the first to contain all of Rosa Luxemburg’s eloquent writings on the 1917 Russian and 1918–19 German revolutions. Also contained here are articles, essays, and manuscripts on the European socialist movement prior to World War I and on her efforts to rebuild the socialist movement on revolutionary foundations in its aftermath. Much of this material appears in...

This collection is the first of three volumes of the Complete Works devoted to the central theme of Rosa Luxemburg’s life and work—revolution. Spanning the years 1897 to the end of 1905, they contain speeches, articles, and essays on the strikes, protests, and political debates that culminated in the 1905 Russian Revolution—one of the most important social upheavals of modern...

The authors of The Red Web examine the shifting role of Russian expatriates throughout history and their complicated, unbreakable relationship with the mother country—be it antagonistic or far too chummy. The history of Russian espionage is soaked in blood, from a spontaneous pistol shot that killed a secret policeman in Romania in 1924 to the attempt to poison an exiled...

A new study of tank warfare used in the Soviet offensive of Operation Bagration, which destroyed Army Group Center. Operation Bagration, the 1944 summer campaign on the Russian Front, has been called "Hitler's Greatest Defeat." The operation involved substantial tank and armoured vehicles on both sides. However, the German forces were severely hampered by the transfer of dozens of Panzer...

Probably one of the most iconic symbols of Soviet military power during the early years of the Cold War was the silhouette of the T-54 tank prowling down streets of foreign capitals under Soviet sway or roaring across fields in massive exercises. Its sleek and unmistakable shape was a warning to any nation that wanted to stand against the Soviet...

Seven Myths of the Russian Revolution is a fascinating volume that significantly contributes to our understanding of the Russian Revolution, from World War I to the consolidation of the Bolshevik regime. This book addresses seven myths, including the exaggerated influence of Rasputin, a supposed conspiracy behind the February Revolution, the treasonous Bolshevik dependence on German support, the numerous Anastasia pretenders...

A highly original overview of Russia's tumultuous history Covering more than one thousand years, Russia as Empire shows how the medieval empire of Kyivan Rus' metamorphosed into today's Russian Federation. Kees Boterbloem vividly and lucidly describes Russia's various incarnations and considers how the concept of empire evolved from tsarist Russia to the Soviet Union, and how and why it survives...

David King (1943-2016) amassed one of the world's largest collections of Soviet political art and photographs. In exploring the intersection of art, politics, and society, few collections in the world can compare with the David King Collection, now part of Tate. King was not only a passionate collector, but also an artist, designer, and historian, and he produced revelatory and...

This book provides a remarkable overview of significant themes in Russian history and culture, in each case starting well before the eighteenth century, while frequently following them up into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Robin Milner-Gulland shows how the public face of Russia developed and evolved through its distinct architecture, astonishing art, and its varied public spaces. What emerges is...

A vivid collection of texts, gathered and introduced by Tamara Deutscher, by Lenin and those who knew him, that shows the Lenin of everyday reality—the man who lived by politics but not by politics alone. Here, we see the Lenin of work and leisure, geared to his life's purpose and yet enjoying to the full all the pleasures of a...

This book focuses on the visual and material culture of St Petersburg and Moscow at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The twilight of Imperial Russia witnessed a sudden renaissance that left a profound imprint on the visual, literary and performing arts: here was a Silver Age as luminous perhaps as the Golden Age of Russian literature many...

The complete story of the pilots who 'made ace' while flying the original MiG fighters. The MiG-1/3 family of fighters was built to satisfy a Soviet Air Force requirement for an advanced, fast, high-altitude fighter. Entering service in the spring of 1941, the problematic MiG-1 had its handling issues rectified with the hasty production of the MiG-3. Many of these...

A dramatic account of a year of two revolutions in Russia, told through extracts from contemporary diaries, letters and memoirs, and illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs. 1917: The Year that Changed the World is a dramatic and compelling account of Russia's revolutionary year as told by those who lived through it (not just in Russia). The book consists entirely...

A BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Thoroughly researched, stylish and entertaining' Financial Times 'A vivid and sparkling account, full of colour and dark drama' Observer 'Brilliantly depicts a disastrous failure' Antony Beevor 'Chillingly original' Max Hastings 'Witty and elegant . . . Excellent background to today's events' Anne Applebaum From the bestselling author of Borderland: A Journey Through...

Winner of the Costa Biography Award What makes a Stalin? Was he a Tsarist agent or Lenin's bandit? Was he to blame for his wife's death? When did the killing start? Based on revelatory research, here is the thrilling story of how a charismatic cobbler's son became a student priest, romantic poet, prolific lover, gangster mastermind, and murderous revolutionary. Culminating...

Masha Gessen's last memory of Russia was the crowd of red-eyed relatives gathered at the airport in Moscow in 1981 to wave goodbye forever to her fourteen-year-old self, her brother and her parents. Unwilling to have their children grow up bearing the weight of the same anti-Semitism that they and their parents had, Masha's mother and father were emigrating to...

For the first time ever, New York Times bestselling author and former CIA operative Robert Baer tells the explosive story of how insiders believe a KGB mole rose to the highest ranks of the CIA. In the aftermath of the Cold War, US intelligence caught three high-profile Russian spies. However, these arrests left major questions unanswered, and rumours have long...

When Ukrainian journalist Iuliia Mendel got the call she had been hired to work for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, she had no idea what was to come. In this frank and moving inside account, Zelenskyy’s former press secretary tells the story of his improbable rise from popular comedian to the president of Ukraine. Mendel had a front row seat to many...

In this monumental book, Ronald Grigor Suny sheds light on the least understood years of Stalin's career, bringing to life the turbulent world in which he lived and the extraordinary historical events that shaped him. Suny draws on a wealth of new archival evidence from Stalin's early years in the Caucasus to chart the psychological metamorphosis of the young Stalin,...

The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution irrevocably changed the course of history, with consequences still being felt a century later. This book offers a dramatic depiction of the chaotic events of the revolution, drawn from selected firsthand accounts. Assembling extracts from letters, journals, diaries, and memoirs from a remarkably diverse cast of both Russians and foreign nationals who were there when the...

Nicholas & Alexandra is the internationally famous biography from Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Massie. Massie shows conclusively how the personal curse of the young heir's haemophilia, and the decisive influence it brought Rasputin, became fatally linked with the collapse of Imperial Russia. As an engrossing account of one of the century's most dramatic episodes—and an intimate portrait of two people caught...

'A fresh, powerful portrait of Lenin' Anne Applebaum, author of Red Famine 'Richly readable ... An enthralling but appalling story' Francis Wheen, author of Karl Marx The cold, one-dimensional figure of Lenin the political fanatic is only a partial truth. Drawing on extensive material that has only recently become available, Sebestyen's gripping biography casts an intriguing new light on the...

Lenin (1870–1924) was the leader of the communist Bolshevik party and founder of the Soviet Union. He was a key revolutionary thinker and a man who, at one time, lived in exile for his political views and survived several assassination attempts. This concise biography of Lenin's life and outlook is based on wide-ranging new research that puts Lenin into the...

'One of the great love stories of history, in a league with Napoleon and Josephine, and Antony and Cleopatra ... Excellent, with dazzling mastery of detail and literary flair' Economist It was history's most successful political partnership— as sensual and fiery as it was creative and visionary. Catherine the Great was a woman of notorious passion and imperial ambition. Prince...

A vivid, thoughtful examination of how technological innovation—especially AI—is shaping the tensions between democracy and autocracy during the new Cold War. So much of what we hear about China and Russia today likens the relationship between these two autocracies and the West to a “rivalry” or a “great-power competition.” Some might consider it alarmist to say we are in the...

From the acclaimed author of The Most Dangerous Book, the true story behind the creation of another masterpiece of world literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. In the summer of 1865, the former exile Dostoevsky found himself trapped in a cheap hotel in Wiesbaden, unable to leave until he'd paid the bill. Having lost the last of his money at...

At the turn of the century, the Russian economy was growing by about 10% annually and its population had reached 150 million. By 1920, the country was in desperate financial straits and more than 20 million Russians had died. By 1950, a third of the globe had embraced communism. The triumph of Communism sets a profound puzzle. How did the...

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Why does it feel like no matter what happens in American politics, the Democrats still get their way? When he left Congress in 2017, Jason Chaffetz still thought elections could save us. For generations, conservatives have hoped that freedom-loving congressional majorities could turn back the tide and restore America’s liberties and prosperity. But now,...

Blending personal memoir with frontline reportage, this is an intimate and fearless portrait of contemporary Russia by one of Russia's most prominent independent journalists. To be a journalist is to tell the truth. I Love Russia is Elena Kostyuchenko's fearless attempt to document Russia as experienced by those whom it systematically and brutally erases—village girls recruited into sex work, queer...

It helped to bring down an empire. Its importance can hardly be exaggerated - Doris Lessing, Sunday Telegraph The Gulag Archipelago is Solzhenitsyn's masterwork, a vast canvas of camps, prisons, transit centres, and secret police, of informers and spies and interrogators and also of heroism, a Stalinist anti-world at the heart of the Soviet Union where the key to survival...

Just as the Iron Curtain fell on Eastern Europe, Steinbeck and Capa began a remarkable journey through the Soviet Union. Their travels took them to Moscow and Stalingrad. What they saw and recorded was what Steinbeck called the "great other side", the ordinary lives of Russian men and women. Combining Steinbeck's compassion, humour, and eye for detail with Capa's photographic...

A family memoir, encompassing some of the most fascinating aspects of twentieth-century European history, from the acclaimed author of Dark Continent. Uncovering his family's remarkable and moving stories, Mark Mazower recounts the sacrifices and silences that marked a generation and their descendants. It was a family that fate drove into the siege of Stalingrad, the Vilna ghetto, occupied Paris, and...

The juicy, funny story of the three dysfunctional rulers of Germany, Russia, and Great Britain at the turn of the last century, combined with a study of the larger forces around them. Three cousins. Three Emperors. And the road to ruin. As cousins, George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the last Tsar Nicholas II should have been friends—but they happened...

Shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction, the Community Relations Commission Award in NSW, and the Age Non-Fiction Book of the Year. I left too early, before tanks rolled into Moscow in 1991, and before Gorbachev was put under house arrest in a failed coup. I left before Russia and Ukraine became separate countries, before the KGB archives were...

An epic work of Russian history from a major new talent It was known as 'the vast prison without a roof'. From the beginning of the nineteenth century to the Russian Revolution, the tsarist regime exiled more than one million prisoners and their families beyond the Ural Mountains to Siberia. Daniel Beer's new book, The House of the Dead, brings...

A gripping account of how, in the depths of the First World War, Russia's greatest revolutionary was taken in a 'sealed train' across Europe and changed the history of the world. By 1917, the European war seemed to be endless. Both sides in the fighting looked to new weapons, tactics, and ideas to break a stalemate that was itself destroying...

A Suspicion of Spies is the first biography of 'Biffy' Dunderdale and tells the intriguing story of an extraordinary man - suave, sophisticated, genial and rich, but also a ruthless and effective spymaster. Following his career, which spanned the Russian Revolution to the Cold War and beyond, A Suspicion of Spies is awash with stories of adventure, bravery, glamour and...

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 was divided by the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. The Iron Curtain, a near-impenetrable barrier of wire and wall, tank traps, minefields, watchtowers and men with dogs, stretched...

The Dead Hand by David E. Hoffman is a gripping narrative that delves into the intense and perilous final decade of the Cold War. This riveting account unveils not only the behind-the-scenes strategic manoeuvres and political drama between the United States and the Soviet Union but also shines a light on the covert operations and the unrelenting arms race that...

“A mesmerising trip across Central Asia ... A fascinating travelogue” Financial Times SHORTLISTED FOR EDWARD STANFORD/LONELY PLANET DEBUT TRAVEL WRITER OF THE YEAR 2020 An unforgettable journey through the former Soviet Republics, by a prizewinning author of international reportage In Sovietistan, Erika Fatland takes readers on a captivating journey through five of the former Soviet Republics—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and...

A Nasty Little War by Anna Reid vividly brings to light the intricate and often overlooked episode of the West's intervention in the Russian Civil War. In the chaotic aftermath of the First World War, Britain, America, France, and Japan dispatched 180,000 soldiers to revolutionary Russia. Their audacious, yet ultimately futile, mission was to depose the Bolshevik forces and alter...

This Is Not Propaganda by Peter Pomerantsev is a riveting exploration of the modern disinformation age. Through a blend of investigative journalism and personal narrative, Pomerantsev delves into the chaotic world of contemporary information warfare, taking readers on a journey through the virtual battlegrounds where truth and lies blur into indistinction. In this fascinating and often alarming book, Pomerantsev meets...

Crimea by Orlando Figes is a masterful recounting of the tumultuous and devastating Crimean War that gripped the mid-19th century. This war, which resulted in the deaths of at least 800,000 men, saw Russia up against a formidable coalition of Britain, France, and the Ottoman Empire. The conflict was driven by multiple motives: territorial ambition, religious fervour, and the fear...