The February Revolution, Petrograd, 1917 is the most comprehensive book on the epic uprising that toppled the tsarist monarchy and ushered in the next stage of the Russian Revolution. Hasegawa presents in detail the intense drama of the nine days of the revolution, including the workers' strike, soldiers' revolt, the scrambling of revolutionary party activists to control the revolution, and the liberals’ conspiracy to force Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. Based on his previous work, published in 1981, the author has revised, enlarged, and reinterpreted the complexity of the February Revolution, resulting in a major and timely reassessment on the occasion of its centennial. See inside the book.

SELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TELEGRAPH AND EVENING STANDARD '[The] centenary will prompt a raft of books on the Russian Revolution. They will be hard pushed to better this highly original, exhaustively researched and superbly constructed account.' Saul David, Daily Telegraph 'A gripping, vivid, deeply researched chronicle of the Russian Revolution told through the eyes of a surprising, flamboyant cast of foreigners in Petrograd, superbly narrated by Helen Rappaport.' Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs Between the first revolution in February 1917 and Lenin’s Bolshevik coup in October, Petrograd (the former St Petersburg) was in turmoil. Foreign visitors who filled hotels, bars and embassies were acutely aware of the chaos breaking out on their doorsteps. Among them were journalists, diplomats, businessmen, governesses and volunteer nurses. Many kept diaries and wrote letters home: from an English nurse who had already survived the sinking of the Titanic; to the black valet of the US Ambassador, far from his native Deep South; to suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, who had come to Petrograd to inspect the indomitable Women’s Death Battalion led by Maria Bochkareava. Drawing upon a rich trove of material and through eye-witness accounts left by foreign nationals who saw the drama unfold, Helen Rappaport takes us right up to the action – to see, feel and hear the Revolution as it happened.

During the Russian Revolution and the ensuing Civil War, more than twenty thousand kinds of banknotes were used throughout the vast expanse of the former Russian Empire. At that time, money was issued not only by the official authorities, such as the Imperial Government, the Provisional Government, and, later, the Bolshevik Government, but also by Generals Denikin, Wrangel, and Yudenich, Admiral Kolchak, Atamans Semyonov and Petliura, Hetman Skoropadskyi, and many other great and small rulers of Russia. Russian money was manufactured in Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, and the United States. To some degree, money served as a manifesto of the issuing government, reflected in the various symbols depicted on the banknotes. Using new archival data, this book expands and, in a number of cases, revises the well-established view of the daily life of people during the Revolution, and dispels the settled myth about how the natural economy prevailed in the years of the Russian Civil War. The book presents unique illustrations taken from the author’s private collection: the “Romanov” banknotes; postage stamps used as currency; “Duma” money; and 1917 banknotes known as “kerenkies”, “morzhovkies”, “tchaikovkies”, “Northern rubles”, “krylatkies”, “rodzyankies”, “the Don rubles”, and “kolchakovkies”. Some of these banknote designs were made by well-known Russian artists, such as Ivan Bilibin, Sergey Chekhonin, and Georgy Narbut. The book is addressed to historians, economists, and all readers interested in Russian history and economy.

A riveting account of the last eighteen months of Tsar Nicholas II's life and reign from one of the finest Russian historians writing today. In March 1917, Nicholas II, the last Tsar of All the Russias, abdicated and the dynasty that had ruled an empire for three hundred years was forced from power by revolution. Now Robert Service, the eminent historian of Russia, examines Nicholas's life and thought from the months before his momentous abdication to his death, with his family, in Ekaterinburg in July 1918. The story has been told many times, but Service's deep understanding of the period and his forensic examination of previously untapped sources, including the Tsar's diaries and recorded conversations, as well as the testimonies of the official inquiry, shed remarkable new light on his troubled reign, also revealing the kind of Russia that Nicholas wanted to emerge from the Great War. The Last of the Tsars is a masterful study of a man who was almost entirely out of his depth, perhaps even willfully so. It is also a compelling account of the social, economic and political ferment in Russia that followed the February Revolution, the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917, and the beginnings of Lenin's Soviet socialist republic.

Multi-award-winning author China Miéville captures the drama of the Russian Revolution in this “engaging retelling of the events that rocked the foundations of the twentieth century” (Village Voice) In February of 1917 Russia was a backwards, autocratic monarchy, mired in an unpopular war; by October, after not one but two revolutions, it had become the world’s first workers’ state, straining to be at the vanguard of global revolution. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? In a panoramic sweep, stretching from St. Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Miéville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilization that still resonates loudly today.

An eyewitness account of the world-changing uprising—from the author of Memoirs of a Revolutionary. “A truly remarkable individual . . . an heroic work” (Richard Allday of Counterfire). Brimming with the honesty and passionate conviction for which he has become famous, Victor Serge’s account of the first year of the Russian Revolution—through all of its achievements and challenges—captures both the heroism of the mass upsurge that gave birth to Soviet democracy and the crippling circumstances that began to chip away at its historic gains. Year One of the Russian Revolution is Serge’s attempt to defend the early days of the revolution against those, like Stalin, who would claim its legacy as justification for the repression of dissent within Russia. Praise for Victor Serge “Serge is one of the most compelling of twentieth-century ethical and literary heroes.” —Susan Sontag, MacArthur Fellow and winner of the National Book Award “His political recollections are very important, because they reflect so well the mood of this lost generation . . . His articles and books speak for themselves, and we would be poorer without them.” —Partisan Review “I know of no other writer with whom Serge can be very usefully compared. The essence of the man and his books is to be found in his attitude to the truth.” —John Berger, Booker Prize–winning author “The novels, poems, memoirs and other writings of Victor Serge are among the finest works of literature inspired by the October Revolution that brought the working class to power in Russia in 1917.” —Scott McLemee, writer of the weekly “Intellectual Affairs” column for Inside Higher Ed

An unparalleled account of one of the most pivotal and hotly debated events in world history.