Russia Books

This last of 3 volumes in Deutscher's biography caps an astonishing and captivating historiographical achievement. Deutscher weaves together character study, drama, and historical narrative to give an authoritative account of Trotsky's tragic final years, as the great leader waged a rearguard ideological struggle in the face of an avalanche of Stalinist harassment, slander, repression and murder. Simultaneously, Deutscher lays bare the blunders and disasters of the Communist International under Stalin's leadership, making clear how inexorably these failures followed from Stalin's deadened bureaucratic-centralist socialism.

Deutscher's deft handling of the facts, personalities, ideas, and situations of the time is simply unparallelled, and makes for a tremendously enjoyable and informative read. His account of Trotsky's last hours left me in awed tears.

Essential material for anyone exploring the question of where socialism went wrong in the 20th century.

THIS YEAR MARKS THE 66TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASSINATION OF LEON TROTSKY-ONE OF HISTORY'S GREAT REVOLUTIONARIES. IT IS THEREFORE FITTING TO REVIEW THE THREE VOLUME WORK OF HIS DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHER, THE PROPHET ARMED, THE PROPHET UNARMED, THE OUTCAST.

Isaac Deutscher's three-volume biography of the great Russian Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky although written over one half century ago remains the standard biography of the man. Although this writer disagrees , as I believe that Trotsky himself would have, about the appropriateness of the title of prophet and its underlying premise that a tragic hero had fallen defeated in a worthy cause, the vast sum of work produced and researched makes up for those basically literary differences. Deutscher, himself, became in the end an adversary of Trotsky's politics around his differing interpretation of the historic role of Stalinism and the fate of the Fourth International but he makes those differences clear and in general they does not mar the work. I do not believe even with the eventual full opening of all the old Soviet-era files any future biographer will dramatically increase our knowledge about Trotsky and his revolutionary struggles. Moreover, as I have mentioned elsewhere in other reviews while he has not been historically fully vindicated he is in no need of any certificate of revolutionary good conduct.

At the beginning of the 21st century when the validity of socialist political programs as tools for change is in apparent decline or disregarded as utopian it may be hard to imagine the spirit that drove Trotsky to dedicate his whole life to the fight for a socialist society. However, at the beginning of the 20th century he represented only the one of the most consistent and audacious of a revolutionary generation of mainly Eastern Europeans and Russians who set out to change the history of the 20th century. It was as if the best and brightest of that generation were afraid, for better or worse, not to take part in the political struggles that would shape the modern world. As Trotsky noted elsewhere this element was missing, with the exceptions of Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and precious few others, in the Western labor movement. Deutscher using Trotsky's own experiences tells the story of the creation of this revolutionary cadre with care and generally proper proportions. Here are some highlights militant leftists should think about.

On the face of it Trotsky's personal profile does not stand out as that of a born revolutionary. Born of a hard working, eventually prosperous Jewish farming family in the Ukraine (of all places) there is something anomalous about his eventual political occupation. Always a vociferous reader, good writer and top student under other circumstances he would have found easy success, as others did, in the bourgeois academy, if not in Russia then in Western Europe. But there is the rub; it was the intolerable and personally repellant political and cultural conditions of Czarist Russia in the late 19th century that eventually drove Trotsky to the revolutionary movement- first as a `ragtag' populist and then to his life long dedication to orthodox Marxism. As noted above, a glance at the biographies of Eastern European revolutionary leaders such as Lenin, Martov, Christian Rakovsky, Bukharin and others shows that Trotsky was hardly alone in his anger at the status quo. And the determination to something about it.

For those who argue, as many did in the New Left in the 1960's, that the most oppressed are the most revolutionary the lives of the Russian and Eastern European revolutionaries provide a cautionary note. The most oppressed, those most in need of the benefits of socialist revolution, are mainly wrapped up in the sheer struggle for survival and do not enter the political arena until late, if at all. Even a quick glance at the biographies of the secondary leadership of various revolutionary movements, actual revolutionary workers who formed the links to the working class , generally show skilled or semi-skilled workers striving to better themselves rather than the most downtrodden lumpenproletarian elements. The sailors of Kronstadt and the Putilov workers in Saint Petersburg come to mind. The point is that `the wild boys and girls' of the street do not lead revolutions; they simply do not have the staying power. On this point, militants can also take Trotsky's biography as a case study of what it takes to stay the course in the difficult struggle to create a new social order. While the Russian revolutionary movement, like the later New Left mentioned above, had more than its share of dropouts, especially after the failure of the 1905 revolution, it is notably how many stayed with the movement under much more difficult circumstances than we ever faced. For better or worst, and I think for the better, that is how revolutions are made.

Once Trotsky made the transition to Marxism he became embroiled in the struggles to create a unity Russian Social Democratic Party, a party of the whole class, or at least a party representing the historic interests of that class. This led him to participate in the famous Bolshevik/Menshevik struggle in 1903 which defined what the party would be, its program, its methods of work and who would qualify for membership. The shorthand for this fight can be stated as the battle between the `hards' (Bolsheviks, who stood for a party of professional revolutionaries) and the `softs' (Mensheviks, who stood for a looser conception of party membership) although those terms do not do full justice to these fights. Strangely, given his later attitudes, Trotsky stood with the `softs', the Mensheviks, in the initial fight in 1903. Although Trotsky almost immediately afterward broke from that faction I do not believe that his position in the 1903 fight contradicted the impulses he exhibited throughout his career- personally `libertarian', for lack of a better word , and politically hard in the clutch.

Even a cursory glance at most of Trotsky's career indicates that it was not spent in organizational in-fighting, or at least not successfully. Trotsky stands out as the consummate free-lancer. More than one biographer has noted this condition, including his definitive biographer Isaac Deutscher. Let me make a couple of points to take the edge of this characterization though. In that 1903 fight mentioned above Trotsky did fight against Economism (the tendency to only fight over trade union issues and not fight overtly political struggles against the Czarist regime) and he did fight against Bundism (the tendency for one group, in this case the Jewish workers, to set the political agenda for that particular group). Moreover, he most certainly favored a centralized organization. These were the key issues at that time. Furthermore, the controversial organizational question did not preclude the very strong notion that a `big tent' unitary party was necessary. The `big tent' German Social Democratic model held very strong sway among the Russian revolutionaries for a long time, including Lenin's Bolsheviks. The long and short of it was that Trotsky was not an organization man, per se. He knew how to organize revolutions, armies, Internationals, economies and so on when he needed to but on a day to day basis no. Thus, to compare or contrast him to Lenin and his very different successes is unfair. Both have an honorable place in the revolutionary movement; it is just a different place.

This is the final volume of Isaac Deutscher's famous three-volume biography of Leon Trotsky, the great Russian revolutionary. Deutscher's biography is the standard biography of Trotsky by which all other biographies of Trosky are measured.

Picking up the life of Trotsky from the time of his first exile from the Soviet Union in 1929, this book carries the story of the later portion of Trotsky's life all the way to his murder in Mexico in 1940.

Deutscher's writing is enticing and holds the interest of the reader. The book is also wonderfully indexed and serves as a guide to the voluminous writing of Leon Trosky during the last phase of his life.

The last ten years of Trotaky's life was one of exile and assassination, an account worthy of the death of Jesus and Socrates. Mme Trotsky even remarked that her husband when mortally wounded look like Jesus taken down from the cross in an El Greco.

It remains to me still incomprehensible that so many Communists and supporters of Communism did not come to Trotsky's defense and aid, allowing that thug Stalin to persecute him, to destroy his followers in morale and in life, and finally to send an assassin to finish him off. Granted that Trotsky's position against Stalin and in favor of the Soviet Union was perhaps too sophisticated for most Communists to rally to, he was after all still the greatest Communist figure after Lenin and perhaps even including Lenin.

Trotsky would of course have been horrified to learn of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but had he led the Soviet Union after Lenin much might have been different and better for all concerned. He certainly was more right than Stalin about Hitler, about China, and about the dangers of extremist collectivization and industrialization, even though collectivization of agriculture and rapid industrialization were program he had initially advanced against the hesitations of Stalin.

In the end Bolshevism has in Trotsky its hero and prophet which nothing can really take away.

This reprint series, others have correctly noted, is marked by numerous typos and other errors.

This is perhaps the most "weak" part of the "Prophet" trilogy, in that Deutscher thought Trotsky's opposition to Stalin was, at the time it happened, useless, as Stalinism was the necessary mechanism of modernization that made a future fully-fledeged socialist society possible. Now, amid the smouldring ruins of Stalinism and with the former Soviet bloc reduced to a sorry parody of compradore capitalism of the Latin American style, one can be certain that, in the long run, Trotsky was right, after all, but then Deutscher puts his case so throughly that one can see precisely in what he was wrong and therefore how Trotsky managed to make so outstanding and unexpected a prevision as the final demise of Stalinism. Only that makes this book a necessary reading.

This is the best Russian history book I have read in a very long time. You should all be "Russian" out to get it as soon as possible. History was never my favorite subject, but this author made the subject come alive. My father's parents were born and raised in Russia and had to leave at around the turn of the twentieth century, so reading about the Tsars and the rebellions of that time period gave me a vast new understanding of my ancestral origins when my family members were strangers in a strange land. Great Job, Pete. History rocks!

This book is real tight now ya hear...pick it up pronto. huzzah for the j man

Mr. Julicher is the best teacher at Cranbrook. This book is great and informative.

I am in the process of reading this book and am
fascinated by the authors detail description of the
tsars. It's wonderful to read a book with substance
and not fluff! I am impressed!

Julicher's book is a great book for anyone who wants to read-up on Russian history without referencing several sources. The book easily divides periods of history into readible and understandable chapters. This is a great book for any college or high school student who is interested in Russian history

This was a required book for a Russian class at SUNY Brockport.It was in good condition and delivered in a timely fashion.

It cannot be easy to describe an entire country, its People, its culture and its customs, in 400-odd pages. Nonetheless, that is exactly what Ms. Gerhart has done here.

She covers not only the basics, the "everything you want to know about Russia" -- she delights her readers by covering several things they may not have realized they wanted to know. For instance, the intelligentsia ordinarily shies away from discussing slang and "mat", perhaps thinking it beneath them. Yet Ms. Gerhart recognizes that, as a practical matter, this is something that simply has to be covered for people visiting or living in real-world Russia. You may not want to use bad words yourself, but you certainly want to know when the gentlemen in the flat-top haircuts and leather coats, walking towards you outside the metro station, are using them towards you... So in a completely proper and not at all vulgar manner, she tells you everything you really need to know about cursing in Russian -- along with a clear injunction to "not try this at home" yourself.

Personally, my favorite part of the book was her discussion of tools used in woodworking, a hobby of mine. I found the translations of these words, not commonly needed by a tourist in Russia, invaluable when I went on a short shopping spree seeking locally forged axes and chisels in podmoskovia. This section may not be for everyone, but it is demonstrative of a point I wish to make about the book as a whole: While not everything in the book may interest everyone, everyone who reads the book will find something that interests them -- perhaps something they never expected to find there.

Having lived in Russia for the last two years, and dealt with Russians and Russian life daily, I believe the author has accurately summarized everything you should know prior to arriving or doing business here. Useful for both the unstudied tourist and students of Russian language.

I have the 1974 paperback edition, and I can't give it enough praise. It's simply awesome! It gives a unique insight into the customs of Russian people as related to their history, their land, and their language. In the preface, the author states that her goal is to "explain in what physical ways the Russian world differs from [the American], both the given world of nature and the world of objects the Russian and his forbears have created to cope with it." In this she has succeeded beautifully. In many ways, everyday Russian life is powerfully affected by environment and tradition. Here is everything you need to know before you go. One of my travel tourguide books claims that many American visitors are "ultimately disappointed" by Russia. This is because they do not experience the *real* Russia, nor even know what to expect. If you are planning a vacation trip, read this book first and your visit will be much enhanced. If you stay there with Russian friends and associates, this book will enable you to understand and appreciate their quite different customs. And if you are learning Russian, this book gives a fascinating insight into the relationship between the language and the people who speak it.

This book can be used by students at any level form beginner to advanced as well as by tourists or other travelers to Russia who don't speak the language, but want to understand the people. The author touches on sensitive issues while remaining relatively non-judgemental, which is unusual and refreshing to find.

Love this Novel series! I purchased this set for my mother's birthday, she is an avid reader and expects high quality writing. She loved them; her friends loved them and so do I! Full of historical informations, but not to the detriment of a great story!

Pella and Phillips never seem to disappoint with this series. I recommend all seven books with five stars.

Travail and Triumph is the non-stop, action-packed sequel to A House Divided.

Anna's beloved mistress Katrina has finally found the love of her life... now she and her new husband are expecting a baby. But will the little one be born into a home of laughter and joy... or to the wrecked ruinage of a once prosperous family?

Sergei's long anticipated book brings on unexpected criticism... and tragedy. Can the house of Fedorcenko stand against the overwhelming wave of trouble? Will Anna's faith in God bring her and those she loves to an end of triumph?

A must-read for every lover of history and adventure!

I found this book to be a wonderful continuance of the Russian saga. At first I was upset about Princess Katrina, but it really turns out for the best. Anna and Sergei raise Mariana to have the wonderful blended qualities of them both. Dimitri leaves to find the measure of the man he never would own up to be. And we leave them again, in a humble cottage in Katyk, right where we started.

Immediately after finishing the second book I picked up the third one and began reading. This book is probably the most suspenseful I have read in the series so far. After all the good that has come to the Federcenko family with the marriage of their only daughter and a baby on the way there is much to rejoice in for the Federcenkos and Remizovs. But their happiness doesn't last long. Dmitri Remizov goes back to his old ways of drinking with his buddies and the much hated Basil Anickin escapes from the mental institution to seek revenge against the woman who broke his heart and her family. Sergei's book angers the tsar and he is sent to fight in another war but Sergei is still scarred from the previous war and his mind has become a volcano just waiting to errupt. Meanwhile, the members of The People's Will are one by one being captured or hung after they killed the tsar. Caught in the midst of it all, Paul Burenin(aka Pavlikov) is trying to survive in the harsh city without a mentor to help him. Everyone that Anna loves is caught in the middle of a world of fear, pain, and suffering but will they overcome these hardships or fall into a world full of despair? Another great book in the series that shouldn't be missed!

If your looking for a general and linear narrative on the history of the Soviet Union, you will not find it in this book. In "The Soviet Century," Moshe Lewin has compiled a scholarly analytical deconstruction of the Soviet process, rise-and-fall, bureaucracy, dissolution and selected analysis of some major figures.
This is the book you read after reading, studying or understanding the general aspects of collective Russian history, to read this first is interesting, but could be overwhelming and should be treated as a collection of brilliant historical abstracts to be read later.
Lewin has drawn on Soviet sources previously unavailable to western audiences, or at least seldom surveyed in English.
The chapters feature pinpoint focus on the minutiae of the Soviet experiment. Lewin's analysis of the necessity of the Soviet Republic hits the mark and explains the Imperial Russian historical burden that the Soviets would be forced to bear.
Logical, intelligent, insightful and deeply scholastic.
REVIEW EVERY BOOK YOU READ, READERS, PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS DESERVE YOUR OPINIONS.

This book gives an excellent, unbiased account of how Soviet Communism evolved from 1917 until its end in 1991. It shows how Stalin gained sufficient power to achieve his reign of terror, and how the Terror led to the destruction of the Communist Party as any sort of positive force. He clearly describes the Khrushchev thaw and the later period of stagnation, contrasting the latter especially with Stalin's rule. A key point in the author's analysis is the transfer, not long after Stalin's death, of the secret police's vast industrial empire to the relevent civilian and military bureaucracies. Thus was ended the need for vast numbers of arrests to maintain a pool of slave labor.
Another key point is the inability of the Soviet Communist Party to develop any legitimate rules of succession. Rulers either died in place or were ousted by their enemies. By the year 1991, Russians were sufficiently aware of these issues and sufficiently powerful, through their independent organizations, to negate Gorbachev's overthrow and to ban the Communist Party as an archaic and dangerous organization.

The only problem with Professor Lewin's work is the fact that the author chose not to have a continuously flowing text, as the book unfolds as a series of chapters of uneven lenght, dealing with case-studies of various issues, mostly about the post-Stalin period of Soviet history. Therefore the book cannot be treated as a reference work for the whole of the period covered. However, there is so much in the book to be offered praise for: firstly, its skillful use of recently avaliable documents in order to develop original observations about the history of the late URSS; second, its refusal of anti-communist mythologizing; thirdly, its concentration on the internal dilemmas facing Soviet bureaucracy rule as it had to face an ever-increasing crisis of legitimacy, even amid a process of sharp (relative) political liberalization. It's not the best written book on the subject, but it compensates in content what it lacks in style.

Lewin has outdone himself in this overview of the history of the USSR. Some potential readers might perhaps be somewhat dismayed by the fact that this book was published with radical leftist publisher Verso, but have no fears: this is no apologia for totalitarianism.

On the contrary, Lewin gives a balanced and very thorough overview of each of the periods of Soviet history, beginning with its Leninist inception and ending with Gorbachov. Most of the book deals with his description of the Stalinist period, and this is also the book's main strength. On the one hand Lewin effortlessly dispels the myths around the gigantic numbers of deaths that have been 'credited' to Stalin by less informed writers such as Conquest and Montefiore; using both statistical records of Chrushchov's period (hardly a fan of Stalin) and the most up-to-date Russian research by Khlevniuk and others, he shows that in fact the death toll of Stalin will have been in the millions rather than tens of millions.

Nevertheless, that is evil enough, and Lewin has no qualms in showing the horrid, oppressive and stifling side of communism. Not only Stalin gets this deserved treatment, but Brezhnev and similar people equally. Lewin also takes the time to look at the development of various socio-economic factors in Soviet history, such as the too often overlooked effects of rapid urbanization in the 1970s.

The only downside of the book will be to some that it pays relatively little attention to World War II, preferring instead to concentrate on the political and social history of the Soviet Union.

Nevertheless, the best in its kind, and far to be preferred over more mainstream works.

For those already familiar with the history of the USSR, Moshe Lewin's "The Soviet Century" is a very exciting book. Instead of offering a comprehensive overview of Soviet history, Lewin focuses on the aspects of the country and its system that have been neglected by previous scholarship. Amazingly, he identifies these phenomena as central to actually understanding the Soviet Union, and blames their neglect on both the unavailability of the relevant documents as well as plain "ideological frenzy" (1). Promising not "to play the role of counsel for the prosecution or for the defence" (274-5), Lewin bases his book almost exclusively on recent Russian-language scholarship dealing with the newly-discovered documents, hinting at a more comprehensive future work that will incorporate English-language scholarship as well.

Lewin focuses primarily on the means through which the rulers of the Soviet Union controlled the country and their subordinates. The first of three parts, "A Regime and its Psyche", focuses on Stalin, how he obtained absolute power, and how he protected it through purges, terror and elaborate structures of control over the party and bureaucracy. It begins in the 1920s with the "de-politicization" of the Communist Party, its abandonment of socialism and absorption by the bureaucracy. Lewin explores in great detail the apparatus set up by Stalin to control the Party, especially the NKVD and its "industrial empire" of labor camps (113). He concludes by characterizing Stalin's rule as an "agrarian despotism", a combination of old-style Tsarism with a new focus on industrialization (146). "Focused on the cult of a supreme leader", it was "a despotism that allowed free range to one individual's delirium... and a huge repressive system" (147).

The second part of the book, "The 1960s and Beyond: From a New Model to a New Impasse", focuses on the second great neglected aspect of Soviet history, the bureaucracy, which cemented its hold on power after Stalin's death, despite efforts by Khrushchev and some others to put the Party back on top. The result was "bureaucratic absolutism... much more modern than that of the Tsars or Stalin [but of] the same species" (380). Lewin includes in this section a lot of nitty-gritty details of the structure and functioning of various bureaucratic institutions (especially Gosplan and Gossnab), and also profiles some post-Stalinist leaders such as Kosygin, Andropov, Mikoyan, Khrushchev and Gromyko. In addition, he addresses the "avalanche of urbanization" (202) and other social development in these decades.

Themes such as urbanization and long-term developments in society are the focus of the third and final part, "The Soviet Century: Russia in Historical Context". This section is in many ways the most interesting, as it addresses thematic issues over the whole of soviet history: backwardness, modernity, urbanization, bureaucracy, demography, etc. Lewin describes "a social and cultural landscape undergoing massive changes" (319) and criticizes other authors for focusing exclusively on the regime and its leaders, as though Soviet society did not exist or were unimportant. Lewin also criticizes those who tend to "Over-Staliniz[e] the whole of Soviet history, by extending it backwards and forwards", and he argues that the changes following Stalin's death "should be acknowledged, and not dismissed with contempt on the grounds that a democratic system offers much more" (324). He distinguishes two different comparisons that can be made: between the Soviet Union and the democratic West, and between Stalinism and the bureaucratic stagnation that followed it, when "improvement in social conditions" (324) led to high levels of development in terms of "demography, education, health, urbanization, [and] the role of science" (373), which were to positively decline during the 1990s.

"The Soviet Century", though focusing for the most part on nitty-gritty details of apparatus and bureaucracy, deals with the largest questions of the central nature of the Soviet Union. Thus Lewin can conclude that the sorry story of the Soviet Union "cannot be described as the 'failure of socialism', because socialism was not there in the first place" (308) and that the USSR never actually "represented the alternative to capitalism it sometimes claimed to be" (359). It should be of great interest to all students of the history and nature of the Soviet Union.

Soltis does an excellent job in this work. This book is much realistic than the Soviet Chess School which is pure propaganda - other than the fact that it has very realistic caricatures of soviet chess players.
Soltis has done some excellent research into the games and player history. A must read.

GM Soltis has produced a fine work here, just like his biography of Frank Marshall, as well as his 70s book "The Younger Soviet School of Chess" (more than can be said for his opening books alas). He covers chess in the Soviet Union from the October Revolution to the Union's demise.

Soltis covers the inauspicious beginnings of Soviet chess, largely due to the whims of Krylenko, the much feared Soviet prosecutor. There were bad setbacks at first, particularly the defections of Alekhine and Bogolyubov, the outclassing of the leading Russians (albeit of a pre-revolonary generation) by the best Westerners at the great Moscow 1925 tournament (of course, apart from the soon-to-defect Bogolyubov), to the rise of Botvinnik to world class.

By the end of WW2, Soviet strength had grown enormously, but was almost unknown in the West. The West realized it soon enough with the Soviets' drubbing of the USA team, victors in the four previous Olympiad. Then Botvinnik convincingly captured the World Title, and the Soviets held it ever since apart from the three-year reign of Fischer.

Soltis also covers the horrors of Communist Russia, showing that even chessmasters were not immune from Stalin's paranoia. Even Krylenko met the fate he had handed out to so many others. The "Great Patriotic War" also took a terrible toll, including Iljin Genevsky, and Romanovsky's first wife and all their daughters. Soltis speculates on the effects of the Soviet oppression on the character of many of its grandmasters.

There is a good collection of lightly annotated games, many unknown but still high quality. At the end, there's even a guide to pronouncing Russian names, which may surprise many, but on the ones I've heard pronounced by native Russian speakers, Soltis provides an accurate guide as far as is possible with the Latin alphabet.

This book offers a fascinating historical account of chess in the Soviet Union. While it does contain lots of game scores with light annotations by the author, the book is more historical than instructional. The book gives a detailed account of the evolution of Soviet chess from the basement of a small house in Moscow just after the revolution, to a national fascination that would dominate the world scene. All throughout the book there is a strong emphasis on the connection between chess and politics in the USSR. A great read for history buffs.

This is a fascinating account of the Soviet (chess) compound. Whether you be an academic or an avid chess player, this book will suit you well. Complete with annotated games and extensive Soviet history, Soltis' scholarship is superb. Sovietologists will likely find themselves in uncharted but important territory.

Those who have read 'Bobby Fischer Goes to War' will recognize this as Edmond & Eidinow's main source. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this work is its politically unbiased nature.

Best read with a board, pen, and notebook.

Soltis and Mcfarland realized a great work. Soviet chess is an historical topic of absolute interest for chess players and not. Soltis keeps a good balance between historical/anecdotical facts and chess facts. the price is high but correct: hardcover, good paper, many photopgraphs.

The pictures are elegant even if the subject isn't. Very beautiful book. Know that the book is not intended to show you all aspects of life in Soviet Russia. It focuses more on the downside of life.

Having traveled in Russia during the Soviet era, I believe that Sherbell, in words and images, has captured the essence of the latter stages of the Empire. The picures and text show a deep understanding and appreciation of the problems of the Soviet system. More importantly, the beauty, humanity and resiience of the Russian people come shining through. It is a terrific photo book.

One can always tell looking at a book if the photographer was just a "tourist" in the area, on a brief assignment from a magazine, or if he really "lived" in the story and made it part of his life. There have been numerous failed attempts by western photographers to capture this period of history. Shepard Sherbell's book is different. He obviously not only put his heart into every image, he made this work a part of his life, spending several years in Moscow and in different Soviet republics before, during and after the USSR fell apart. His photographs speak about the human spirit, the dignity of the people, their feelings and day to day worries. It is well balanced.
But for someone unfamiliar with the subject the advise is - don't try to "consume" all the images at once. The material is too rich. One has to sink into the book little by little, explore it and revisit it again and again.

Sherbell is a master of his craft. He takes the reader on a virtual tour of the former Soviet Union. This talented photographer manages to convey the personality and texture of a complex country and period of history with sensitivity and wit.

"Soviets" is a book that is best savoured one page at a time. The photographs are matched only by the text which, unlike many photography books, adds another level to the work. This is a book that could be placed in the history section of any library as easily as photography.

Whether or not you ever visited the Soviet Union in its dying days, Shepard Sherbell's photographs will grab you. His images of that moribund nation reveal the darkest secrets of the U.S.S.R. Those of us who lived through those final moments will recognize the chilling faces of a great power in demise. The crumbling buildings, cracking monuments and crushed spirits of a once-mighty state are beautifully portrayed in this book. It's an eyewitness to a land of infinite impossibilities.

Make no mistake: THE SOVIETS is not another collection of snapshots from Red Square and the Bolshoi Theater. Instead, its pages are populated with glimpses into the real life of that now-extinct country. Unless you'd lived there, this is a side of the Soviet Union you probably never saw.

Brace yourself.

As the author states,"Stalin successfully imposed his vision upon one sixth of Earth's landmass." Whereas Hitler's charisma was instrumental in his rise to power, Stalin's success was due to his self control and his extraordinary ability in successfully interacting with others, even his enemies. De Jonge's detailed account of Stalin's life helps us understand the man who greatly influenced the course of Russia's recent history.

Stalin as chief thug, with lots of black humor.

"Ezhov was a rat, he killed many innocent people, and that's why we shot him."- Stalin speaking of his former head of the NKVD.

I just want to add a note to the review I wrote earlier. De Jonge's "Stalin" was written before glasnost opened some new materials from the Soviet Union for scholars to access. Thus, it is limited from that standpoint. However, this is in no way a serious hindrance to the book. Having also read Conquest's biography of Stalin, which WAS written after glasnost, there is very little that Conquest added to de Jonge and certainly no major re-interpretation. Both books are excellent, de Jonge's a little easier read.

Joseph Stalin is a fascinating subject. Alex de Jonge is an outstanding writer. They combine for a great book. There are other biographies of Stalin; Deutscher is a bit dry, Conquest is excellent, but perhaps a bit short. De Jonge covers his subject thoroughly, but not with so much detail as to overwhelm or lose the reader. De Jonge is an excellent writer, and he combines his talent with useful information and a plethora of fascinating, sometimes hilarious, anecdotes. He doesn't get bogged down in Marxist theory, but he does give a brief synopsis which will benefit the average reader; a scholar might wish for more. Perhaps the most outstanding and useful part of the book are those sections dealing with foreign affairs, especially in the aftermath of World War II. Brilliant analysis....

Although this book is fairly large at somewhere around a thousand pages, it's awesome. De Jonge is a superior biographer who manages to avoid getting bogged down in Stalinist politics and subcommitees. De Jonge narrates the rise of the dictator and his subsequent maneuverings very well, keeping you interested with little effort, despite the fact he's describing bleak people against a bleak background. Stalin is a fascinating, evil personage worthy of remembrance and De Jonge does his life justice. A masterpiece of modern biographical work.

I found this book to be interesting because there are many quotes from people who fought in Stalingrad. The brutality of the street fighting section was of particular interest to me. Of other high notes on the book are the chapters of Pavlov's house and a uniqu view of Chuikov. It looks into the mindsets of the troops and is eye opening. It covers a lot but loses some details along the way. From a research point of view, it hurts the rating.

This doesn't read like a normal history book in that column A attacked column B. It is refreshing to read the personal accounts. One cannot help but imagine being there. Paulus is made out to be a [...] which may or may not be deserved. I would not want to be in his shoes to say the least. This book should be read if your into the day to day combat of both German and Soviet forces. It gives a lot of understanding and visualization.

I first visited Stalingrad in 1982, and at the time the veterans of that battle only talked about the war in ways as approved by the party. This is an interesting and important book on one of history's greatest battles because the author has been able to get new and revealing stories from the living survivors without fear of government repercussions. There is a lot of material in here that adds greatly to our body of knowledge about the battle. It also is an interesting study in the role of morale (or lack thereof) on the battlefield.

Unlike too manby books about Stalingrad which only repeat the same old tired tales that have been written many times before (and from the German point of view)this is a new, original, and worthwhile point of view.

Highly recommended.

Former university lecturer and battlefield tour guide Michael K. Jones presents Stalingrad: How the Red Army Survived the German Onslaught, a compelling military history and analysis that lives up to its title. Based heavily upon Jones' extensive interviews with Russian veterans, Stalingrad especially emphasizes the role of psychology - including leadership, morale, and motivation - in turning the tide of war. Of especial interest is the testimony of former deputy commander of the Warsaw Pact, Colonel-General Anatoly Mereshko, who was staff officer to the 62nd Army's commander Chuikov and one of the principal surviving witnesses to historical events. Stalingrad reveals how desperate the defenders truly were, especially when the Germans broke into the city in 1942, painting the city's defense as more than solid tactics, but also a triumph of resolute human spirit. A "further reading" list and an index round out this one-of-a-kind testimony grounded in the words of the people who witnessed history itself.

This is the book that doesn't describe the usual myths about the battle for Stalingrad, instead the author brings newer and more interesting evidence on this struggle. His book includes numerous interviews with other Soviet veterans, with ranks ranging from a private to a high ranking officier. The details on the street battles are really cool with detailed descriptions of key fights, such as the defence of Pavlov's House or the fighting in ruined Red October Factory Complex. The book also includes many maps and very rare photographs, some of them obtained from personal archives of General Chuykov. Overall this is a unique book and I am very satisfied that I read it.

I have eight books on the battle of Stalingrad. Even though this is not the usual combat history concerning the battle, it is one of the most interesting, captivating and thought provoking accounts on the great battle that I have read. Yes, it does focus on the Russian perspective instead of the German (refreshing for a change, thank goodness)! It will be a welcome addition to anyone's collection of the battle of Stalingrad.

Honours children's closeness to Spirit and is a beautiful story - being based on a true story all the more memorable.

Heard about this book on NPR and bought it for nephew cos I liked the idea and the story. What wasn't clearly told was just how incredibly rich Peter Sylvada's illustrations are... all oil paintings... they capture the beauty and harsh environment of Alaska, as well as slices of life from a native Alaskan village. Even southern dwellers can see some of why those who love it do so. The story is clearly and simply told, with a very likeable heroine, and gave me shivers at the end... but it was really the illustrations that blew me away.

I purchased this book (among many on here) for my unit on whales and the Inuit (Eskimo) people for my first grade class. This was a great book to share the relationship the people have with whales. It also shared a wonderful way the communities work together as well. What a great book! If you like whales, this is a great one to read to children!

Although technically a children's book, "A Symphony of Whales" shook me up and blew me away with rich illustrations and an even more potent story. Sweet and simple, author Schuch tells the beautiful story of an Inuit girl and her whale spirit friend "Narna" -- and (not to give away the ending) the dramatic escape of three thousand whales trapped in an icy inlet of the Pacific ocean.

Not to be cute, but the book really is as much for adults as for children. Illustrator Peter Sylvada's pictures must literally be seen to be believed.

I liked the girls kindness for the whales. She was cute and lovable. She was like a mother.