Russia has had an extraordinary history in the twentieth century. As the first Communist society, the USSR was both an admired model and an object of fear and hatred to the rest of the world. How are we to make sense of this history? A History of Twentieth-Century Russia treats the years from 1917 to 1991 as a single period and analyzes the peculiar mixture of political, economic, and social ingredients that made up the Soviet formula. Under a succession of leaders from Lenin to Gorbachev, various methods were used to conserve and strengthen this compound. At times the emphasis was upon shaking up the ingredients, at others upon stabilization. All this occurred against a background of dictatorship, civil war, forcible industrialization, terror, world war, and the postwar arms race. Communist ideas and practices never fully pervaded the society of the USSR. Yet an impact was made and, as this book expertly documents, Russia since 1991 has encountered difficulties in completely eradicating the legacy of Communism. A History of Twentieth-Century Russia is the first work to use the mass of material that has become available in the documentary collections, memoirs, and archives over the past decade. It is an extraordinarily lucid, masterful account of the most complex and turbulent period in Russia's long history.

In most analyses of the Cold War's end the ideological aspects of Gorbachev's "new thinking" are treated largely as incidental to the broader considerations of power. English demonstrates that Gorbachev's foreign policy was the result of an intellectual revolution. He analyzes the rise of a liberal policy-academic elite and its impact on the Cold War's end.

This biography examines the long life of the traveller and author Stephen Graham. Graham walked across large parts of the Tsarist Empire in the years before 1917, describing his adventures in a series of books and articles that helped to shape attitudes towards Russia in Britain and the United States. In later years he travelled widely across Europe and North America, meeting some of the best known writers of the twentieth century, including H.G.Wells and Ernest Hemingway. Graham also wrote numerous novels and biographies that won him a wide readership on both sides of the Atlantic. This book traces Graham’s career as a world traveller, and provides a rich portrait of English, Russian and American literary life in the first half of the twentieth century. It also examines how many aspects of his life and writing coincide with contemporary concerns, including the development of New Age spirituality and the rise of environmental awareness. Beyond Holy Russia is based on extensive research in archives of private papers in Britain and the USA and on the many works of Graham himself. The author describes with admirable tact and clarity Graham’s heterodox and convoluted spiritual quest. The result is a fascinating portrait of a man who was for many years a significant literary figure on both sides of the Atlantic.

Unlike most Soviet-centered histories, A Vision Unfulfilled begins with a chapter summarizing late nineteenth-century Russian history, allowing instructors to begin their course with 1894, 1905, 1914, or 1917. The book also gives fuller attention to the history of the non-Russian populations in the tsarist and Soviet empires than other texts of its kind.

Michael Khodarkovsky's innovative exploration of Russia's 20th century, through 100 carefully selected vignettes that span the century, offers a fascinating prism through which to view Russian history. Each chosen microhistory focuses on one particular event or individual that allows you to understand Russia not in abstract terms but in real events in the lives of ordinary people. Russia's 20th Century covers a broad range of topics, including the economy, culture, politics, ideology, law and society. This introduction provides a vital background and engaging analysis of Russia's path through a turbulent 20th century. A representative sample of chapters in the book includes: 1902: Peasants 1903: The Pogrom 1906: The Tsar's Speech 1908: Church 1910: Tolstoy's Death 1913: The Romanovs 1916: Rasputin 1922: USSR 1927: Orphans into Communists 1931: Palace of the Soviets 1935: Manufacturing Heroes 1939: Hitler's Ally 1941: Moscow on the Brink 1945: Rape of Germany 1949: Atomic Project 1954: Nuclear War Exercise “Snowball” 1955: Empire of Nations 1960: Virgin Lands 1969: The Soviet Dr. Seuss 1971: The Soviet Bob Dylan 1972: Nixon in Moscow and Kiev 1977: USSR, Less than a Sum of its Parts 1980: Moscow Olympic Games 1984: “Iron Maiden” Behind the Iron Curtain 1985: Vodka 1990: Soviet Nationalisms and Ethnic Wars 1997: Russian Fascism 1998: Return of the KGB The historical mosaic of Russia's 20th Century provides a unique examination of modern Russian history one snapshot at a time, prompting us to reflect on a larger picture of Russia's past and its place in the world today.

In this provocative book, the author asks Russians difficult questions about how their country's volatile past has affected their everyday lives, their aspirations, their dreams, and their nightmares.