Distinguished Professor Abraham Ascher offers an impressive blend of engaging narrative & fresh analysis in this perennially popular introduction to Russia Newly updated on the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution Russia A Short History begins with the origins of the first Slavic state & continues to the present-day tensions between Russia & its neighbours the rise of Vladimir Putin & the increasingly complex relationship with the United States ...

Geoffrey Hosking is one of the foremost historians of Russia & its people The result of a lifetime's knowledge this monumental & 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 second edition is updated throughout with a new chapter on the recent role of Putin & Medvedev & their impact on Russia's economy politics & its citizens ...

October 1917 heralded as the culmination of the Russian Revolution remains a defining moment in world history Even a hundred years after the events that led to the emergence of the world's first self-proclaimed socialist state debate continues over whether as historian E H Carr put it decades ago these earth-shaking days were a landmark in the emancipation of mankind from past oppression or a crime & a disaster Some things are clear After the implosion of the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty as a result of the First World War Russia was in crisis -one interim government replaced another in the vacuum left by imperial collapse In this monumental & sweeping new account Laura Engelstein delves into the seven years of chaos surrounding 1917 -the war the revolutionary upheaval & the civil strife it provoked These were years of breakdown & brutal violence on all sides punctuated by the decisive turning points of February & October As Engelstein proves definitively the struggle for power engaged not only civil society & party leaders but the broad masses of the population & every corner of the far-reaching empire well beyond Moscow & Petrograd Yet in addition to the bloodshed they unleashed the revolution & civil war revealed democratic yearnings even if ideas of what constituted democracy differed dramatically Into that vacuum left by the Romanov collapse rushed long-suppressed hopes & dreams about social justice & equality But any possible experiment in self-rule was cut short by the October Revolution Under the banner of true democracy & against all odds the Bolshevik triumph resulted in the ruthless repression of all opposition The Bolsheviks managed to harness the social breakdown caused by the war & institutionalize violence as a method of state-building creating a new society & a new form of power Russia in Flames offers a compelling narrative of heroic effort & brutal disappointment revealing that what happened during these seven years was both a landmark in the emancipation of Russia from past oppression & a world-shattering disaster As regimes fall & rise as civil wars erupt as state violence targets civilian populations it is a story that remains profoundly & enduringly relevant ...

The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the face of the Russian empire politically economically socially & culturally & also profoundly affected the course of world history for the rest of the twentieth century Now to mark the centenary of this epochal event historian Steve Smith presents a panoramic account of the history of the Russian empire from the last years of the nineteenth century through the First World War & the revolutions of 1917 & the establishment of the Bolshevik regime to the end of the 1920s when Stalin simultaneously unleashed violent collectivization of agriculture & crash industrialization upon Russian society Drawing on recent archivally-based scholarship Russia in Revolution pays particular attention to the varying impact of the Revolution on the various groups that made up society peasants workers non-Russian nationalities the army women & the family young people & the Church In doing so it provides a fresh way into the big perennial questions about the Revolution & its consequences why did the attempt by the tsarist government to implement political reform after the 1905 Revolution fail; why did the First World War bring about the collapse of the tsarist system; why did the attempt to create a democratic system after the February Revolution of 1917 not get off the ground; why did the Bolsheviks succeed in seizing & holding on to power; why did they come out victorious from a punishing civil war; why did the New Economic Policy they introduced in 1921 fail; & why did Stalin come out on top in the power struggle inside the Bolshevik party after Lenin's death in 1924 A final chapter then reflects on the larger significance of 1917 for the history of the twentieth century
- & for all its terrible flaws what the promise of the Revolution might mean for us today
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The History Files series presents the people events & ideas that have shaped our world through the lens of recent research Each title covers a single topic & is illustrated with telling images from out-of-the-way sources & a collection of facsimile documents bringing the past to life in an accessible yet authoritative format Peter Waldron tells the stories of all the Russians exploring the vast expanses of the empire & the lives of the rural peasants describing the ways in which Russia took on or rejected Western influences & recounting how the empire was built & maintained He examines the great flowering of Russian art literature & music the pressures for & against reform & finally the fall of the Tsarist regime in a cataclysm of violence The facsimile documents bring the period alive as do the poignant"ations taken from first-hand accounts detailed box features & over 150 evocative images ...

Alaska 1989 In a world where Alaska is still a Russian possession charter captain Grigorivich Plesnett has a stained past as a major in the Czars Troika Guard he was cashiered for disobeying a direct order Now ten years later Grig charters out to a cossack & discovers his past has not only caught up with him but is about to violently change his future & the future of all nine of the nations of North America as well Spanning Alaska from the Southeastern Inside Passage to the frozen Yukon this is an epic tale of one mans journey of redemption & courage to face old challenges & help birth a new nation ...

During the first third of the 20th century Russian art went through a series of dramatic changes reflecting the political & social upheavals of the country & producing
- for a brief exciting period
- a body of avant-garde work whose influence would eventually be felt throughout the rest of the world Eagerly breaking with the past & absorbing the innovations of Europe a new generation of young artists developed a host of fresh ideas & original styles such as Neo-primitivism Rayonism Suprematism & Constructivism John Bowlt has collected & translated manifestos articles & declarations by the principal artists & critics of the era including Kandinsky Lissitsky Malevich Goncharova & Rodchenko as well as many lesser-known but nonetheless key players Illustrated with more than 100 rare photographs & facsimiles & supplemented by clear introductory essays up-to-date biographical information & copious notes this is the essential sourcebook for a clear understanding of the motivations & struggles that produced an extraordinary seminal period in Russian art

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This beautifully produced boxed set of 53 postcards contains stunning images from the best-selling Russian Criminal Tattoo ...

The second volume of the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia contains completely new drawings text & photographs from Danzig Baldaev & Sergei Vasiliev During his fifty years working as a prison guard in St Petersburgs notorious Kresty Prison Baldaev diligently recorded over 3000 criminal tattoos documenting their meanings within this closed society This volume further explores the extremes of this incredible collection It is published on 3rd July 2006 & reprinted in 2011 ...

This final volume of previously unpublished drawings & photographs completes the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopadia trilogy Danzig Baldaevs unparalleled ethnographic achievement documenting over 3000 tattoo drawings was made during a lifetime working as a prison guard The motifs depicted represent the uncensored lives of the criminal classes ranging from violence & pornography to politics & alcohol In this title a medieval knight is surrounded by the severed heads of his enemies a naked woman simultaneously services a man & two dwarfs a crying President Gorbachev grips a human bone between sabre-like fangs a group of angels drinks vodka with God on a cloud & the meanings of these arresting images are explained to the uninitiated eye Accompanied by graphic photographs showing the grim reality of the Russian prison system & some of the alarming characters that inhabit it the illustrated criminals of Russia tell the tale of their closed society ...