Russia Books

While the battle for Stalingrad was going on another huge offensive was being undertaken by the Germans in the Caucasus to give them the oil that they would eventually need if they wanted to continue the war they had started. Andrei Grechko was one of the commanding generals in the Caucasus and in this book details the actions undertaken by various fronts and battle groups. This is a combination of land armies, flotillas, and air force armies and their struggle against German and Romanian troops for control of Southern Russia. One can easily get bogged down in all the names of villages, towns, and cities as well as the enormous amounts of troop formations, from battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, corps, to armies but the overall impression you will be left with is that these battles might have been even more instrumental than Stalingrad was. There were more German divisions with Army Group A which was in the Caucasus and they might have been trapped if it wasn't for the resistance that the 6th Army would eventually put up at Stalingrad after being surrounded. Aside from the general tone there are many personal stories of bravery and heroics on the part of Red Army men and partisans who were working against the Germans. The recounting of 'Malaya Zemlya' was excellent as well as descriptions of operations in Novorossiisk which witnessed some of the most ferocious fighting during the war. Overall a solid investment for an understanding of a part of the war that most overlook or skim over.

Once again, Dave Glantz and Harold Orenstein have done the field of military history a great service. Through diligence and persistence, they have managed to retrieve and translate a number of crucially important studies done by the Red Army during World War Two that illuminate the Soviet General Staff's analysis what what went right and what went wrong during operationally important campaigns and battles. Free of much of the standard Communist jargon we've come to expect from other official Soviet accounts, this Red Army staff study of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation, known better to western readers as the Battle of the Cherkassy Pocket, provides students of the Eastern Front an insider's perspective of how the operation progressed from beginning to end. Unlike most official Soviet accounts of this particularly battle, which usually portray the Red Army in a most heroic and flattering manner, this account demonstrates that the Red Army was capable of honestly assessing its mistakes and evaluating its performance in view of improving how it would fight future battles against the much-vaunted Wehrmacht. While not completely free of the heavy hand of Communist censorship, this insider's after-action review and analysis portrays, warts and all, how this operation unfolded and is remarkable for the amount of self-criticism displayed. Dave and Harold have managed to not only translate this important document into something easily comprehensible to the average reader, but have provided a wealth of background information that provides important context in regards as to where this operation fit into the STAVKA's overall plan for the conduct of operations during the spring and summer of 1944. I'm looking forward in the future to a similiar treatment by Dave and Harold of the Soviet General Staff study of the Berlin Operation. This is a must-have reference work for anyone contemplating serious study and analysis of operations on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1945.

The Classic Film Scripts series is a must for any serious videophile. These books separate the video into its basic constituencies and allow one to understand what the subliminal shots are supposed to portray. Even the background sounds are described.

The contents include A history by Andrew Sinclair, An introduction by Sergei Eisenstein, credits, cast and the actual screenplay. There are plenty of still photos. The film is still available so you will want to read this first.

More than just a reference you will become intrigued as you are reading.

Bazhanov is the most anti-communist writer and the only one who really was inside in the top of Bolshevik government understanding the whole nonsense of the system. We can't trust him in every word, especially about his escape from USSR, but as a good storyteller he tries his best to open for us a real picture of evil time.

This book and the other 3 in the series show insight of the world of the ghetto in Russia. The hard times and difficult life of Jews in the town are diminished as the warmth, emotions and humor of daily events are told.

This is without doubt the best book on Shamanism I have ever read, even better than Eliade's famous one. My central interest is not shamanism but divination and early ways of thought. I had felt I needed to have a better understanding of Shamanism and so picked up this book after I met the author at a conference.

It's primary focus is modernized versions of shamanism but one learns about original forms because of the author's considerable knowledge of the subject. He is sympathetic to modernized versions such as Harner's "Core Shamanism" but always makes clear how this version has been greatly altered to fit the interests and lifestyle of modern Westerners.

For anyone interested in Shamanism this book is the best possible start; experts too will learn from it.

I give this my highest recommendation.

Marion Countess Donhoff is a member of an aristocratic East Prussian family, an accomplished writer and, for many years, a member of the editorial staff of DIE ZEIT. She rode several hundred miles west from her ancestral home at Friedrichstein through freezing weather and deep snow to escape the Red Army as it moved west across her homeland.

Where is her homeland? Try looking for East Prussia on a map sometime. You won't find it. You won't even find Friedrichstein. All the place names were changed and all the territory taken from German hands. No German signs or placenames survive in what was once a prosperous kingdom almost seven centuries old at the time of its desctruction in 1945. Grave markers were pulled up and used for paving stones as the Poles and Russians eradicated the last vestiges of German language, culture and property.

Grafin von Donhoff's account of those times doesn't dwell on her own losses, or sufferings, which were considerable. All the men in her family either fell on the Eastern Front serving a Fuhrer they'd come to despise, or were executed for joining the July 20, 1944, plot which nearly assassinated Hitler at Rastenburg, Hitler's East Prussian Headquarters.

Instead, she draws a portrait of her childhood Kingdom before it was crushed. The book includes some great maps and photographs. Considering the important role East Prussia played in Europe's history, it is surprising how little is available today on its history. Countess Donhoff's classic book remedies that.

If you are interested in European history, you'll enjoy this book. In my opinion, it's a classic.

Amazing insight to the soviet era government that can only be offered by russian citizens!

The author of this book, Count Paul Vasili, was actually Princess Catherine Radziwill, who knew her subjects quite well. However, documents made available since the book was published, have clarified some points and proven Radziwill wrong on a few others. All in all, the book gives a pretty good contemporaneous account of life in "royal Russia" under the last three Romanov czars, and Radziwill's commentary makes for very interesting reading for anyone interested in the subject of the Romanov dynasty and how it came to an end. Radziwill does her very best to present an evenly balanced portrait of her subject; her occasional biases make perfect sense if one understands the sources she had for her information, and her grasp of politics of the times is, for a woman who was not involved in the government of the nation, quite remarkable.

This was written by great grandpa who died just last week. And I never read it until now. And I love it. It helped close up the feeling of regret I had for not asking him sooner.
I love it!!