Russia & the Former Soviet Union

THE FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR This absorbing collective biography of the genius Nobel family reveals how the Nobels' business and personal lives were fundamentally intertwined with the histories of Sweden and Russia, as well as the...

When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, many in the West were left stunned at his act of brutal imperialism. To those who had been paying attention, however, the warning signs of the bloodshed and slaughter to come had been there for...

The history of a building site in Moscow where Russian rulers since Alexander I have planned, constructed, and destroyed monuments of colossal proportions This book surveys two centuries of Russian history through a succession of ambitious architectural...

The Cold War is one of the furthest-reaching and longest-lasting conflicts in modern history. It spanned the globe - from Greece to China, Hungary to Cuba - and lasted for almost half a century. It has shaped political relations to this day, drawing new...

The definitive history of the Russo-Japanese warThe Russians were wrong-footed from the start, fighting in Manchuria at the end of a 5,000 mile single track railway; the Japanese were a week or so from their bases. The Russian command structure was...

This book is an outstanding overview of the life and thoughts of Karl Marx. The editor masterfully weaves together Marx's published works and private letters into a rich tapestry of history and ideas. In addition to what you might expect to find in a...

'Engrossing' Daniel Beer, Guardian'A beautiful book... incisive, radiant' Olivia Laing'Illuminating, dramatic... majestic writing' Spectator'Enthralling... a triumph' Andrew SolomonAlex Halberstadt returns to Russia, the troubled, enigmatic land of his...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.AwardsWinner of Pulitzer Prize 1994.Book InformationISBN 9780679751250Author David RemnickFormat PaperbackPage Count 624Imprint Vintage BooksPublisher Random House USA...

A visceral account from contemporaneous diaries of a soldier who frequently came close to death but somehow survived. Following his Abitur (A-levels) in 1940, Rehfeldt volunteered for the Panzer Arm but was trained on the heavy mortar and heavy MG with...

RASPUTIN'S RELATIONSHIP with Russia's last Tsarina, Alexandra, notorious from the famous Boney M song, has never been adequately addressed; biographies are always for one or the other, or simply Alexandra and her husband Nicholas. In this new work,...

This remarkable book traces the quest for the truth about the Holocaust in Lithuania by two ostensible enemies: Ruta a descendant of the perpetrators, Efraim a descendant of the victims. Ruta Vanagaite, a best-selling Lithuanian writer, was motivated by...

The Stuff of Soldiers uses everyday objects to tell the story of the Great Patriotic War as never before. Brandon M. Schechter attends to a diverse array of things-from spoons to tanks-to show how a wide array of citizens became soldiers, and how the...

La-7 Soviet single-engine, single-seat fighter aircraft of the World War II period. Developed in the design bureau of S. A. Lavochkin as a successor to the La-5FN aircraft. The La-7 was a development of the La-5 design. Both the sizes and shapes of the...

Across Russia's easternmost shores and through the territories of the Inupiat and Yupik in Alaska, Bathsheba Demuth reveals how, over 150 years, people turned ecological wealth in a remote region into economic growth and state power. Beginning in the...

Almost three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, today more often than ever, global media and intellectuals rely on the concept of homo sovieticus to explain Russia's authoritarian ills. Homo sovieticus - or the Soviet man - is understood to...

'The Quiet Before is a fascinating and important exploration of how ideas that change the world incubate and spread.' Steven Pinker'Filled with insightful analysis and colourful storytelling... Rarely does a book give you a new way of looking at social...

Amidst the vast literature on the parties and politics of revolutionary Russia and its near constant appropriation for presentist purposes over the years, States of Anxiety assesses the effects of the great scarcities and enormous losses that Russia...

On Christmas Eve 1944, the men of the IV SS-Panzerkorps were preparing to celebrate the occasion as best they could. Taking advantage of the pause in the fighting around Warsaw, they looked forward to partaking in that most German of holidays, including...

No work in modern literature, with the possible exception of Uncle Tom's Cabin, can compete with What Is to Be Done? in its effect on human lives and its power to make history. For Chernyshevsky's novel, far more than Marx's Capital, supplied the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780143109891Author Dominic ZieglerFormat PaperbackPage Count 368Imprint Penguin USAPublisher Penguin Putnam Inc

WINNER OF THE 2020 MICHEL DEON PRIZE'O'Clery takes us into the hidden heart of Soviet Russia... An arresting and evocative story' Keggie Carew, author of Dadland'A tour de force ... Love, politics, murder, wars, and the fracturing of ties, personal and...

Authoritative illustrated analysis of the history of the military Special Forces units of the Soviet Union and Russian Federation. When the shadowy, notorious Spetsnaz were first formed, they drew on a long Soviet tradition of elite, behind-the-lines...

In this highly detailed book, naval historian Edward Hampshire reveals the fascinating history of the nuclear-powered attack submarines built and operated by the Soviet Union in the Cold War, including each class of these formidable craft as they...

This book examines the major warships of the Imperial Russian Navy which participated in the Russo-Japanese War. The focus is on the battleships, coastal defence warships, and cruisers of the Pacific Squadron and Baltic Squadron that fought during the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781410204080Author Vladimir I LeninFormat PaperbackPage Count 440Imprint University Press of the PacificPublisher University Press of the...

On a moonless night in January 1991, a dozen U.S. aircraft appeared in the skies over Baghdad. To the Iraqi air defenses, the planes seemed to come from nowhere. Their angular shape, making them look like flying origami, rendered them virtually...

The ideal travel companion, full of insider advice on what to see and do, plus detailed itineraries and comprehensive maps for exploring this epic nation.Travel on the epic Trans-Siberian railway, admire the colourful onion domes of St Basil's Cathedral...

In The Long Hangover, Shaun Walker presents a deeply reported, bottom-up explanation of Russia's resurgence under Putin. By cleverly exploiting the memory of the Soviet victory over fascism in World War II, Putin's regime has made ordinary Russians feel...

The first of two volumes in John Erickson's monumental history of the Soviet-German war.In THE ROAD TO STALINGRAD Professor Erickson takes us in detail from the inept command structures and strategic delusions of the pre-invasion Soviet Union, through...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780805074604Author Fellow Orlando FigesFormat HardbackPage Count 608Imprint Metropolitan BooksPublisher Metropolitan BooksWeight(grams) 1066gDimensions(mm)...

A gripping account of the Russian visionaries who are pursuing human immortalityAs long as we have known death, we have dreamed of life without end. In The Future of Immortality, Anya Bernstein explores the contemporary Russian communities of visionaries...

A spellbinding new biography of Stalin in his formative yearsThis is the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin from his birth to the October Revolution of 1917, a panoramic and often chilling account of how an impoverished, idealistic youth from the...

The world first heard of Klaus Fuchs, the head of theoretical physics at the British Research Establishment at Harwell in February 1950 when he appeared at the Old Bailey, accused of passing secrets to the Soviet Union. For over sixty years...

A fascinating, bottom-up exploration of contemporary Russian politics that sheds new light on why Putin's grip on power is more fragile than we think "Putin v. the People wrestles with perhaps the central conundrum of contemporary Russia: the endurance...

A highly illustrated study of the T-90, the backbone of the armoured units of Putin's Russia. In the wake of the T-72 tank's poor performance in the 1991 Gulf War, the Kremlin instructed the Russian tank industry to drop the discredited T-72...

The savage partisan war on the Eastern Front during World War II saw a wide variety of forces deployed by both sides. On the Soviet side, civilian partisans fought alongside and in co-operation with Red Army troops and Red Army and NKVD 'special forces'...

When Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, launching World War Two, its army seemed an unstoppable force. The Luftwaffe bombed towns and cities across the country, and fifty divisions of the Wehrmacht crossed the border. Yet only two decades...

In the West's collective imagination, Vladimir Putin is a devious cartoon villain, constantly plotting and scheming to destroy his enemies around the globe. But how did an undistinguished mid-level KGB officer become one of the most powerful leaders in...

Preface by Jesse Benjamin and the Walter Rodney FoundationIntroduction by Robin D.G. KelleyAfterword by Vijay PrashadIn his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading revolutionary thinkers of the Black Sixties. He...

Highlights of the extraordinary wartime diaries of Ivan Maisky, Soviet ambassador to London The terror and purges of Stalin's Russia in the 1930s discouraged Soviet officials from leaving documentary records let alone keeping personal diaries. A...