TLS BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016FINANCIAL TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015WINNER OF THE PUSHKIN HOUSE RUSSIAN BOOK PRIZE 2016 ' Magisterial reveals how much is at stake for world order in Ukraine & Syria' Rachel Polonsky' As much as anything World War I turned on the fate of Ukraine' The decision to go to war in 1914 had catastrophic consequences for Russia The result was revolution civil war & famine in 1917-20 followed by decades of communist rule Dominic Lieven's powerful & original book based on exhaustive & unprecedented study in Russian & many other foreign archives explains why this suicidal decision was made & explores the world of the men who made it thereby consigning their entire class to death or exile & making their country the victim of a uniquely terrible political experiment under Lenin & Stalin Dominic Lieven is a Senior Research Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge University & a Fellow of the British Academy His book Russia Against Napoleon (Penguin) won the Wolfson Prize for History & the Prize of the Fondation Napoleon for the best foreign work on the Napoleonic era