Mathilde Kschessinska (1872-1971) was the mistress of three Russian Grand Dukes and the greatest ballerina of her generation. She is in almost every book about the Romanovs, but so many myths surround her that she has become the stuff of legend. After her own memoirs, this title aims to reveal the real story by looking at what she did not say.

'Mackrell's enthralling biography restores Lydia Lopokova to her rightful position centre-stage' DAILY MAIL 'Superb ... Mackrell, with her insider's knowledge of ballet and theatre, lovingly recreates Lydia's many worlds' GAY & LESBIAN REVIEW 'A hugely entertaining and informative study of the Ballets Russes star' SPECTATOR Born in 1891 in St Petersburg, Lydia Lopokova lived a long and remarkable life. Her vivacious personality and the sheer force of her charm propelled her to the top of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. Through a combination of luck, determination and talent, Lydia became a star in Paris, a vaudeville favourite in America, the toast of Britain and then married the world-renowned economist, and formerly homosexual, John Maynard Keynes. Lydia's story links ballet and the Bloomsbury group, war, revolution and the economic policies of the super-powers. She was an immensely captivating, eccentric and irreverent personality: a bolter, a true bohemian and, eventually, an utterly devoted wife.

This book explores the relationships between dancers and their teachers, and classical ballet pedagogy through the life of Maria Zybina. It was inspired by the author’s direct connection through Zybina and her teachers.

In his biography of Stalin, Kotkin rejects the inherited wisdom about Stalin's psychological makeup, showing us instead how Stalin's near paranoia was fundamentally political and closely tracks the Bolshevik revolution's structural paranoia, the predicament of a Communist regime in an overwhelmingly capitalist world, surrounded and penetrated by enemies. At the same time, Kotkin posits the impossibility of understanding Stalin's momentous decisions outside of the context of the history of imperial Russia.

Alla Osipenko is the gripping story of one of history's greatest ballerinas, a courageous rebel who paid the price for speaking truth to the Soviet state. A cast of characters drawn from all sectors of Soviet and post-Perestroika society makes this biography as encyclopedic and encompassing as a great Russian novel.