The window between two equally stifling autocracies-the imperial family and the communists-was open only briefly, in the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of WWI, by which time the revolution was in full fury. From the last years of Tolstoy until the death of the Tsar and his family, however, Russia experimented with liberalism and cultural openness. In Europe, the Ballet Russe was the height of chic. Novelists and playwrights blossomed, political ideas were swapped in coffee houses and St. Petersburg felt briefly like Vienna or Paris. The state, however couldn't tolerate such experimentation against the backdrop of a catastrophic war and a failing economy. The autocrats moved in and the liberals were overwhelmed. This story seems to have strangely prescient echoes of the present.
Journalist Adam Higginbotham’s definitive, years-in-the-making account of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster—and a powerful investigation into how propaganda, secrecy, and myth have obscured the true story of one of the twentieth...
A New York Times Bestseller for 12 weeks! "Helen Rappaport paints a compelling portrait of the doomed grand duchesses." —People magazine"The public spoke of the sisters in a gentile, superficial manner, but Rappaport captures sections of lette...
After two and a half years as NPR's Moscow bureau chief, David Greene travels across the country-a 6,000 mile journey by rail, from Moscow to the Pacific port of Vladivostok-to speak with ordinary Russians about how their lives have changed in the p...
Winner of the Pulitzer PrizeOne of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times From the editor of The New Yorker: a riveting account of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which has become the standard book on the subject. Lenin’s Tomb c...
The definitive, single-volume history of the Russian Revolution, from an award-winning scholarIn The Russian Revolution, acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin traces the events which ended Romanov rule, ushered the Bolsheviks into power, and introduced...
Distinguished Professor Emeritus Abraham Ascher offers a skillful blend of engaging narrative and fresh analysis in this concise introduction to Russian history.
Newly updated on the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, it covers the grow...
The magnum opus and latest work from Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature—a symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia When the Swedish Academy awarded...
The Romanovs were the most successful dynasty of modern times, ruling a sixth of the world’s surface for three centuries. How did one family turn a war-ruined principality into the world’s greatest empire? And how did they lose it all? &...
Narrator: Simon Russell Beale Published: 05/03/2016
“Michael Farquhar doesn’t write about history the way, say, Doris Kearns Goodwin does. He writes about history the way Doris Kearns Goodwin’s smart-ass, reprobate kid brother might. I, for one, prefer it.”—Gene Weingart...
