This popular, concise and highly readable study discusses the key themes and debates about the Russian Revolution. Robert Service's lively analysis examines: - state and society under the Romanovs from 1900 - The February and October Revolutions of 1917 - The final years of the Romanov dynasty and the start of the Soviet order - Comparisons with political, social and economic trends elsewhere in the world - The extent to which the later development of the USSR was conditioned by the October Revolution Clear and incisive, the fourth edition has been thoroughly revised and updated in the light of the latest research and features a new scene-setting Introduction and maps. Service's text remains the essential starting point for anyone studying this tumultuous period in the history of Russia and the world in the twentieth century.

Mastering Twentieth Century Russian History presents a vivid and informative account of the events which befell the Russian people during the course of the twentieth century. - Explores the major developments of the last century, from the revolution of 1905, to the First and Second World Wars, to the Cold War and the rise and fall of the USSR - Examines key figures and their actions - from Nicholas II, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin to Putin - Deals with events right up to 2000, enabling the Soviet experiment to be placed in context a decade after its collapse - Incorporates the latest research from British, American and Russian historians, examining key controversies and debates - Includes primary source material, maps, photographs, posters and a full chronology of events This text is the ideal companion for anyone seeking a clear yet detailed introduction to the fascinating events of twentieth century Russian history.

Robert Service has revised and updated his popular book on the Russian Revolution, offering an integrated account of politics, sociology and economics. He has widened the focus out from 1917 so as to cover both the final years of the Romanov dynasty and the inception of the Soviet order. In a concise, lively style, the book provides an assessment of various basic interpretations of the Russian Revolution.

Reveals to the world for the first time a unique and hitherto undiscovered selection of interviews with leading participants in the February Revolution of 1917, representing the most significant contemporary testimony on the overthrow of Europe's last old regime.

'Cosmic Paradoxes' was an outcome of a Conference-Summer Course on 'Astrophysical Cosmology: Frontier Questions' held at El Escorial, Madrid, on August 16-19, 1993. The Scientific Directors were John C Mather, Director of NASA's COBE (Cosmic Background Radiation Explorer), and Jose M Torroja, Secretary of the Spanish Academy of Sciences. Julio A Gonzalo, UAM, was in charge of coordinating the event. The first speaker was Ralph A Alpher, one of the pioneers who predicted very early the CBR (Cosmic Background Radiation). The CBR was observed by A Penzias and R Wilson, Bell Telephone Labs, in 1965. Thereafter it was measured with unprecedented precision by the COBE in 1989, characterizing the Planck spectral distribution of the CBR (J C Mather) and detecting its minute anisotropies (G Smoot). In 2003 the WMAP, NASA's satellite successor of the COBE, confirmed COBE's results, and gave an excellent quantitative estimate of the 'age' of the universe as 13.7 ± 0.2 Gyrs, in support of the Big Bang theory of cosmic origins.In the Third Edition of this book, almost coincident with the launch reports of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), includes recent work discussing evidence in favor of an open finite universe. A further discussion of the Heisenberg-Lemaitre time (Appendix D) takes into consideration that the cosmic expansion velocity at very early times is Ṙ(yHL)≫c and reviews in more detail the thermal history of the universe.