Product Description
In February 1987, Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev personally received Yoko Ono in Moscow.In a surprising revelation, Raisa declared that she and her husband were fans of John Lennon.While Raisa sang lyrics from a Lennon song, the Soviet leader observed solemnly, "John should have been here."It was a stunning declaration.After three decades of virulent anti-rock rhetoric, a Soviet leader had allied himself with the forces of rock & roll.In the era of glasnost and perestroika, rock & roll has provided, in a very real sense, the soundtrack to the Gorbachev revolution. This stunning policy shift has fueled the already burgeoning Soviet rock scene and has commanded intense media attention in the West.

But as Timothy W. Ryback demonstrates in this lively and revealing book, Western music, particularly rock & roll, is not new to the Soviet bloc.Indeed, as Mr. Ryback shows, rock music has effected one of the most significant transformations ever in Soviet bloc society.He traces the emergence of rock culture in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union from 1954 to the present day, where it has become unquestionably the most pervasive form of mass cultural activity in Communist society. Charting this process, Rock Around the Bloc looks at both sides of the thirty-year war between rock fans and Soviet bloc governments.It takes the reader into the Kremlin for special Central Committee meetings devoted to the "evil" of rock music; into the streets of beleaguered 1968 Prague and 1981 Poland where rock bands and their fans helped spearhead social and political reforms;and into the bedrooms of young people secretly tuning into rock broadcasts from the BBC and Radio Free Europe.

The reader comes to realize that in some ways, life in the Soviet bloc was surprisingly similar to life in the West. There was the Elvis craze in the late 1950s, Beatlemania in 1964, and the disturbing appearance of punks and skinheads on urban streets in the early 1980s. At the same time, these similarities make the differences all the more striking.Prague's mid-1960s drug cult relied on analgesics mixed with alcohol to ape western drugs. In 1969 young Moscow musicians seeking to convert their acoustic guitars into electric ones dismantled every public phone in Moscow to pilfer the electronic parts. And Dean Reed, an expatriate American who became a genuine Soviet bloc superstar selling millions of records, died mysteriously shortly after expressing his desire to return to the United States.

Informed throughout by a deep knowledge and love for the music as well as an understanding of the Soviet bloc's political and social realities, Rock Around the Bloc tells a fascinating story on many levels:the liberalization of communist society, the traumas and triumphs of Soviet bloc youth culture, the spread of rock's influence in unlikely places, and the surprisingly rich variety of rock & roll in Eastern Europe that keeps its kinship to western music while forging a unique identity all its own.Engagingly written and full of compelling detail, Ryback's definitive account will delight all rock fans and will fascinate people interested in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and modern social history. ... Read more

Product Description
Written by a leading expert in World War II air operations on the Eastern Front, this is the last in a quartet of books that together give total coverage of air battles in this theatre of war from 1941 to 1945. It details the final phase of air operations in the East from late 1943, and then covers the German defensive operations around the River Dnepr and the Sea of Azov in September 1943, and the subsequent German retreat and the air bridge to Cherkassy in early 1944. Final coverage is given to the major Soviet offensive against the Army Group Centre in mid-1944, the fall of Romania and the autumn battles in Poland, Courland, and on the Vistula, ending with the major Soviet winter offensive of early 1945 and the last-ditch battles over Berlin itself.
The author's writing provides fantastic in-depth detail, and also tells the story from the viewpoints of both sides and from both strategic and tactical contexts. The book includes unique eyewitness material and many rare and previously unpublished photographs, 'biography boxes', plus data tables, technical assessments, and appendices. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Magnificent Account of Eastern Front Air Battles!
Only long-time Russian Air Force enthusiasts can appreciate what superlative histories Christer Bergstrom has authored over the years. Russian histories of Eastern Front air ops produced in the 1960s/70s/80s were stilted, turgid prop-lit tracts filled with motherland-loving heroes inflicting catastrophic losses on the evil fascist invaders with few losses in return. The photographs found in those histories were heavily retouched, resembling nothing so much as bad xeroxes. Western histories concentrated on the Luftwaffe, the VVS often being characterized as hopelessly inept and easy targets for Experten. Bergstrom's books, by contrast, reflect impeccable research in various archives, official documents, books and other sources east and west and a balanced, comprehensive presentation of events, personalities, tactics and policies. BAGRATION TO BERLIN, published in 2008 by Ian Allan Publishing, is a prime example; military aviation history doesn't get much better than this.

Though it's subtitled THE FINAL AIR BATTLES IN THE EAST: 1944-45, the book's scope is larger by far. Bergstrom chronicles the air war from Barbarossa on, the better to understand the catastrophic defeat Army Group Centre suffered in 1944. He documents the painful learning curve VVS units suffered in the first years of the war, the constant reinvention and improvement those units underwent in terms of tactics and equipment and the major impact those units eventually had on the ground war. By 1944/45, the VVS, in terms of quantity and quality, was the 800-pound gorilla of the Eastern Front.

Bergstrom packs a great deal of information into the book's 128 pages of text. (Appendices take up another seven pages; notes/sources, five more). He does a marvelous job of presenting a wide-ranging multi-dimensional history of the air war, balancing strategic considerations with in-the-cockpit details. As you progress through BAGRATION TO BERLIN, you can easily understand why the VVS played such a dominant and successful role in the Russian march to Berlin. It's fascinating and informative history.

The book includes hundreds of well-reproduced and sometimes rare photographs of VVS and Luftwaffe aircraft and aircrew along with color maps and a color artwork depicting Mistel attacks on the Oder River bridges. Profiles of the opposing aircraft would have been nice but that's just me. Visually BAGRATION TO BERLIN is a treat!

Air combat buffs will want to add BAGRATION TO BERLIN to their collection. It's a well-researched, well-written and well-illustrated guide to the Eastern Front air war. Viewed as a whole, the four Bergstrom Ian Allan volumes are as near to a definitive history of the Eastern Front air war as I've ever seen. Highly recommended.

far superior to Black Cross/Red Star
A must-buy if interested in the air war over the Russian Front. Authored by Bergstrom, proofed and corrected by a native English speaker (unlike the Black Star/Red Cross volumes) this is a highly readable account of the last year of the air war on the Eastern Front. If you're waiting for the next volume of BC/RS from Eagle Editions then you will have a very long wait. This is a much more than adequate substitute..

Another superb Offering
Not being a great collector of aviation books I stumbled upon Christer Bergstrom"s book Kursk The Air battle, which after reading I had to buy his next offering on the final era of the Second World War on the Eastern front, namely Bagration to Berlin.
In this his final offering on the brutal campaign on the eastern front the authour has once again penned a very interesting and well researched book.
As per his previous offerings on the air battles the book takes sources from both the Russian and German side to give a balanced view.
It again has a comprehensive loss chart but interestingly only for the Russian side as most records for the Luftwaffe at this late stage of the war were destroyed.
There are some rare and unique photos of Russian aircraft flying over Berlin and landing at captured german airfields in Berlin while the fighting was still going on nearby.
One thing that appeared to be different in the campaign in the east was that the Luftwaffe was able to send up planes to assist their ground troops on a number of occasions resulting in furious air battles.
Indeed the Russians faced the largest number of "experten"(aces)on the Eastern front compared to the allies, and it was these men and their few machines that kept the growing number of Russian pilots equipped with superior aircraft at bay for so long.
As the Luftwaffe began to grind to a halt through a lack of pilots, aircraft and fuel, the Russians with the dreaded ground attack Il 2 ably suppourted by large numbers of fighter escorts wreaked havoc on the German ground forces.The Russians equipped now with the much superior La 7 and Yak 9 began to shoot down large numbers of German aircraft in a complete reversal of the air campaign in 1941 - 42.
There is anice little piece on the use of the Mistel, a Ju 88 packed with explosives and piggy backed by a Focke Wulf 190.It was this type of aircraft that was used to attack the Kustrin bridges over the Oder in April 1945.
As usual from this authour there are a large number of photographs of the aircraft and personalities involved in the battles
The book is full of combat accounts, and covers all areas of the war from Kurland, to the collapse of Army Group centre in operation Bagration, Poland and the Oder crossings to the final battles over Berlin.
Printed on fine glossy paper for excellent photo reproduction, you will find a wealth of information that is not readily accessible in other books which tend to concentrate on the land battles.
Well worth reading and highly recommended ... Read more

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Shown are Soviet armored trains as used during the Russian Revolution, the Russian Civil War, and World War II. ... Read more

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Bolshevik Women is a history of the women who joined the Soviet Communist Party before 1921. Drawing on a database of more than five hundred individuals as well as on intensive research into the lives of the most prominent female Bolsheviks, Barbara Clements tells the fascinating story of the female Reds who survived imprisonment, built bombs, led armies into battle, and struggled to survive under Stalin. The study argues that women were important members of the Communist Party during its formative years. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Innovative and entertaining
I was forced to read this book, in that I took a class taught by the author. Fortunately, I didn't have to steel my soul and tell her to her face that it reeked (not that I would have had the guts to do that anyhow),for it was definitely the best book we read in that particular Russianhistory class. Recounting the histories of Soviet women both well-known(Kollontai) and not so well-known (Zemliachka), Clements shows, inwell-structured arguments, how the women of the Bolshevik movement,feminists as well as socialists, interpreted their feminist mission in thecontext of what they felt must happen in Russia before women and otheroppressed minorities truly gained equal rights. One of the most fascinatingthemes in the book is how Soviet women viewed their task in contrast to theWestern suffragist movement, which was largely led by the well-to-do. Thisbook is an excellent introduction to Soviet history in the early years andoffers several directions for study in the history of the Soviet Union andof feminism. ... Read more

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This is a history of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia from the time of the first inhabitants of the region up to the break up of the Mongol Empire in 1260AD. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Strong overall
This book is the only book to deal with the lands in question (Inner Asia) so thoroughly. I feel as if a large gap in my knowledge of history has been at least partially filled (there is always more to learn). Not that I'm without my complaints: the maps are few and far in between, the photographs poorly done. Sometimes, the book was downright boring, but that's to be expected with such an extensive book.

If you want to learn about the dynamic relationship between argricultural civilizations and pastoralist civilizations, read this book. It does leave some questions unanswered though. Such as, why did new tribes replace old tribes (ex: the Goths in Hungary, being pushed out by the Huns, who were pushed out by the Magyars)? What were the relative populations of the time? What was the relative demand for the goods of the steepe peoples? What was the trade balance between steppe and agricultural peoples?

Despite the questions, the book was worth the read.

A waste of paper, time and money
As an archaeologist working on the archaeology of North East Asia, I found this book a very big disappointment.Then again what should I expect from a historian whose speciality is the 18th and 19th century history of Russia?

The author draws heavily on secondary works in English, German, French and Russian.Instead of depending on those, he should have gone directly to the archaeological site reports and the historical annals themselves.Its also sad to see a synthesis on Russia and Central Asia that relies heavily on the works of English language scholars and ignoring the Russian and Mongolian language scholars.In terms of some of his English secondary sources, ones like Davis-Kimball et al. (NOMADS OF THEEURASIAN STEPPE) and Barfield's PERILOUS FRONTIER are still in print and available from AMAZON.COM.

Production values in this book are also uneven. The photographic reproductions in many cases are also poorly scanned copies (see for example p. 53, 214 in the paperbackversion).The publisher should have done a better job.

My advice:you can do a lot better (try the two suggestions above)

Superb
The life and times of Chingghis Khan were brilliantly written and I couldrecommend this book for the last 2 chapters alone. The rest of it was verygood. Be prepared to re-read chapters if, like me, you weren't exposed tothese regions in history. There are elements here important to scholars ofChina and Byzantium as well.

Simply fascinating
In these days of specialist books it is virtually impossible to find scholarly works that cover a broad spectrum of history. Inner Eurasian pre-history spans the history of a large part of mankind itself. It is homeof the Indo-Europeans, a linguistic group that spread in pre-historic timesto India, Iran, Asia Minor and Europe.

The impact of the warrior tribesfrom the Steppe lands - such as the Huns, the Goths, Vandals, Alans and theall-important Mongols - shattered some of the world's greatest empires.David Christian does a marvelous job explaining it all to us, while keepingthe scholarly element intact throughout. It is a book I would recommendwholeheartedly to anyone interested in the general history of mankind.

A Delight to read
This work is authoritive, detailed and were needed succinct and to the point with excellent references for further investigation. The use of charts, and illustrations give the detail needed to illustrate theinformation being refered too.I am looking forward to Volume 2 with greatanticipation ... Read more

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Zsuzsa Gille combines social history, cultural analysis, and environmental sociology to advance a long overdue social theory of waste in this study of waste management, Hungarian state socialism, and post-Cold War capitalism. From 1948 to the end of the Soviet period, Hungary developed a cult of waste that valued reuse and recycling. With privatization the old environmentally beneficial, though not flawless, waste regime was eliminated, and dumping and waste incineration were again promoted. Gille's analysis focuses on the struggle between a Budapest-based chemical company and the small rural village that became its toxic dump site. ... Read more

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This book provides a comprehensive survey of Soviet economic development from 1917 to 1965 in the context of the prerevolutionary economy. In these years the Soviet Union was transformed from a predominantly agrarian country into a major industrial power. These developments resulted in great economic achievements at great human cost. Professor Davies discusses the inherent faults and strengths of the Soviet system, paying particular attention to the major controversies, and presents the results of recent Russian and Western research. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Short popular introduction to the history of Soviet industrialization
R.W. Davies, who can probably lay claim to the title of being the single person most knowledgeable about the economic history of the USSR, was asked to write this popular introduction to the topic in the Cambridge series "New Studies in Economic and Social History", intended for a wider public than usual for such monographs. The result is an excellent and readable, while information-dense, overview of about 84 pages of real content.

Davies begins with the Czarist industrialization, putting it in the context of the attempts (earlier by Peter the Great and others) to modernize Russia to maintain its military power on the continental scene. He shows how the state undertook protectionism and investment in railways, as well as inviting much foreign investment, to develop Russia's industry in the period before WWI. He then continues with War Communism and its attempts to win the Civil War and stave off famine, then the NEP and its compromise politics. The main part of the booklet, as one might expect, is taken up however by Stalin's industrialization policies, their methods, and their effects. Afterward there is a short discussion of Khrushchov's reforms, his attempts to develop agriculture more (always the weakest link in the Soviet chain) and the subsequent beginning of the collapse in the 1970s under Brezhnev.

Davies is not just a very competent historian, but also a very even-handed one. He takes the time to explain the controversial issues in Soviet economic history (and there are many), the positions of various players in it, and his own. He himself is neither afraid to criticize the USSR nor afraid to give it the credit that is due. One thing that is unfortunate is that this book was published in 1998, and therefore did not include the major new modelling study of the Soviet industrialization by Robert C. Allen, "Farm to Factory" (Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution (Princeton Economic History of the Western World)), which was published in 2003. Allen's book constitutes a major defense of the Preobrazhensky-Stalin heavy industrialization strategy as against the NEP (and Paul Gregory's capitalist road), and is recommended as a complement to this book.

A very good guide
If you want an overview on this subject you should give a try on this book ... Read more

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How did Nicholas II, Russia’s last Tsar, meet his death? Shot point blank in a bungled execution by radical Bolsheviks in the Urals, Nicholas and his family disappeared from history in the Soviet era. But in the 1970s, a local geologist and a crime fiction writer discovered the location of their clandestine mass grave, and secretly removed three skulls, before reburying them, afraid of the consequences of their find.

Yet the history of Nicholas’ execution and the discovery of his remains are not the only stories connected with the death of the last Tsar. This book recounts the horrific details of his death and the thrilling discovery of the bones, and also investigates the alternative narratives that have grown up around these events. Stories include the contention that the Tsar’s killing was a Jewish plot, in which Nicholas’ severed head was taken to Moscow as proof of his death; tales of would-be survivors of the execution, self-confessed children of the Tsar claiming their true identity; and accounts of miracles performed by Nicholas, who was made a saint by the Russian church in 2000. Not least among these alternative narratives is the romanticization of the Romanovs, epitomized by the numerous photographs of the family released from the Russian archives.

Customer Reviews (3)

The Sociology of Death

"The Many Deaths of Tsar Nicholas ii: Relics, Remains & the Romanovs" is a fascinating read.

Wendy Slater has approached the familiar story by analyzing its cultural impact in terms of product - the many myths of survivors, the photographs, icons, veneration of the family as martyrs & so on. This is incredibly fascinating. Firstly she discusses the many accounts of the last days & the murders, giving a rounded & very clear allover summation.

She follows through the discovery of the remains, the survivor myths, the identification of the bones & the cultural impacts of all this, particularly in Russia.

Slater writes powerfully & without excess sentiment. You feel the horror of the deaths all the more in her scholarly presentation. Her extensive knowledge is used apropriately to advance her viewpoint without a single extraneous detail being given.

For me a very interesting part of the book is her discussion of the Tsar's manipulation of publicity in the form of photographs of his attractive family.

This really is a book to read & re-read, a good corrective to the over sentamentalized portrayals of the Romanov tragedy that are all too common.

A Comprehensive Look at the Romanov Murders
This book was a bit pricey considering it isn't very long and only contains a few pictures, but it was a pretty decent read.It explores not only the death of Nicholas and his family, but the conspiracy theories that abounded after the murders.It addresses the doubt surrounding the discovery of the remains, the possibility of survivors, pretenders who have come out of the woodwork in subsequent years, the miracles of Romanov icons, and all other variety of conflicting rumors that have thrived over the last 90 years.Slater makes an interesting point in her conclusion, which emphasizes Nicholas's role as a martyr.Unlike Charles I of England and Louis XVI of France who were tried and executed publicly in the midst of Revolution, Nicholas was secretly shot in the middle of nowhere, there was no evidence of the executions other than the safely guarded testimony of participants, and their remains were not found for decades, leaving vast speculation amongst Russian people and portraying the Bolsheviks in a negative light.

This is a heavy piece of history but contains great sources and a unique perspective.I recommend to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the brutality that took place in Soviet Russia in 1918.

A serious, scholarly work on the death and aftermath of Tsar Nicholas II and his family
More often than not, when I read a book on the last rulers of Russia, the Romanovs, there's a part of me that tends to react with some disgruntlement. If it is a novel, it's with a a lot of unhappiness at times; lately there seems to be quite a few novels that pursue the very unlikely possibility that someone survived the Ekaterinburg massacre.

But scholar Wendy Slater has delved into what has actually remained from that time, using the autobiographical accounts from the executioners, various rumors and wild stories, the works of writers, and the bones themselves. But what makes this different from most of the works on the Romanovs that are available is that it remains a dispassionate work, looking at what there is, and refusing to give in to the temptation to romanticize the story.

Cruel Neccesity
Slater pieces together the various stories from the accounts that the guards in the Ipatiev house gave to both the White armies that took Ekaterinburg a few days after the massacre, and those who survived the Revolution. The account is slightly fictionalized to preserve a narrative flow, but she is careful not to add or subtract anything. What emerges is a story that both answers questions and evokes a chilling finality. This is not a timid story, and the violence quoitent is quite high, so not for the highly sensitive.

True Crime
The story now moves to the late 1970's, and when several people got together, and decided to figure out what really happened. They put together what clues they had, tramped out into the woods, and started digging -- and found three skullsand some bones. They kept their secret for a while, made castings, and then quietly returned the bones to their resting place. It was after all, the time of the Soviets, and not quite the time to state that grave of the last tsar of Russia and his family had been found. But a few years later, politics had changed, and an offical team along with the original discoverers were brought in, and this time the entire grave was opened and the bones removed to figure out what had happened. How the remains were identified, and a mystery that is still unfolding, are the topics of this chapter, along with some heavy scholarly infighting.

The many deaths of Nicholas II
Slater discusses some of her reasons for writing this book, now that she has the two major sets of clues in hand. Instead of just merely going after 'what really happened,' she takes the more interesting route of how the past is interpeted and seen. Many of the stories here I had never heard of before, and it was an entirely new angle of historical research.

Gothic horror
One of the more wild stories that roamed through the Soviet Union was that the head of Nicholas II (and sometimes that of the Empress as well) were taken to Moscow for the delectation of Communist leaders before being destroyed. Besides these rather lurid accounts, there are also the questions of why the Tsar and his entire family and remaining servants were so brutally murdered. Some say that it was a ritualized killing, but the truth is far more ordinary -- it was common practice for both the Communists and the Whites to 'dispose' of any political prisoners before they left a city.

False Alexeis
With the offical acknowledgement of the grave, the story of there being survivors among the Tsar's children got a new lease on life. Several accounts of how Alexei and one of his sisters had survived the massacre, rescued by those still loyal to a tsarist Russia, were published, and the mystery of where two of the bodies are is still fueling fictional potboilers. Besides being wildly improvable, Slater goes into some deeper thoughts as to why these myths persist; I suspect that there is a deeply seated need in the human psyche that when we hear of some dreadful tragedy that somehow, we hope that someone has managed to survive, despite all of the logic to the contrary. As of this writing, a major earthquake has struck the country of Peru, and in the mountains of Utah, they're looking for trapped coal miners -- even in the face of desperate odds, we still hope that someone is alive. And the images of NicholasII's children, all between the ages of 13 and 22 at the time of their murder, stir a feeling of dispair -- how could any one murder children, and if people are capable of that, then what does that say about humanity?

Tsar Martyr
Nicholas II and his family were deeply religious, and so given their piety and the massacre, it's hardly surprising that they've become venerated as saints, and were offically canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. Along with some images of the icons that have been created, Slater includes several stories about how these images just might be creating miracles.

Family Portraits
Lastly, Slater looks at the uses of photography of the Imperial family, and how it was used during the reign of Nicholas II, and afterwards. Unlike the formal, stiff photography that most monarchies used to depict an image of strength, power and tradition, Nicholas II also wasn't shy about how he used a sentimental streak of human nature, showing himself, his wife, and their children as images of cozy domestication. In some of the letters that have survived, he and Alexandra discuss how this or that photo may make a suitable postcard, to raise funds for charity, or to inspire loyalty. Of course, the use of photography to manipulate public sentiment is still a viable tradition today.

Conclusion: Miscalculating History
Slater sums up her ideas in this brief chapter, and helps to make the rather murky stories and myths that we have about the last tsar and his family a bit more clear.

Along with these essays, there is an introduction, extensive footnotes, bibliography and sources, and an index to pinpoint just what you're looking for. The pictures that are included are rather grainy and in black and white; only a few of them were new to me.

I have to say that this is one of the better scholarly works on the Romanovs that I've seen in the past years. Slater comes down rather heavily on the more romanticized, especially gushing, tributes that have been published in the last few years. To be honest, this book needed to be written, if only to put some of the more outlandish ideas to rest, once and for all -- although that is rather doubtful.

Slater's writing is careful, meticulous and thorough. While this is certainly not light reading, and I would not recommend it for anyone but those who take their history seriously, it is one of the better books out there at the moment on Tsarist Russia. Just make certain that you have something a bit lighter to read after you get finished with this, as the subject matter is extremely depressing.

Four stars overall. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

The Most Important Book on Soviet Espionage in Years
Let's get the bad stuff out of the way at the begining: _Mortal Crimes_ is poorly organized.The endnote numbers were left out of the text, and there weren't many of them to begin with.It's sometimes rambling and repetious.It's indexing of Soviet covernames is pathetic.And sometimes, I think West's conclusions are seriously askew, as when he identifies codename VEKSAL as Fermi rather than Oppenheimer.And there are a number of small, annoying mistakes (such as getting years wrong).

None of that matters very much, though they did cost the book its fifth star.What matters is that in _Mortal Crimes_, Nigel West has pulled together huge amounts of material, including FBI files, VENONA decrypts, and recently released intelligence files from the former Soviet Union (OOH!I just LOVE to type "former Soviet Union!").The KGB and GRU (as they are usually known) penetrated the U.S. government and scientific reasearch to an extent hard to grasp.There were about 200 active information sources in the U.S. at the end of WWII, and they supplied incredible amounts of information to the Soviets.

I've been following the story of Soviet Espionage against the Manhattan Project for over ten years, and I found some new and important information about every other page: reasons to suspect Hans Bethe of espionage; possible identification of spy RELAY as Phillip Morrison; evidence of hard left associations of Ernest Lawrence(!); connections between spies William Weisband and Julius Rosenberg; the difficulties imposed by the way counter-intelligence was compartmentalized; the flood of atomic information from Britain; partial confirmation of Sudoplatov's charges against Robert Oppenheimer.

There's some very good coverage of the Canadian phase of the espionage as well.

I read this book in two days, and will soon reread it, indexing some of the information it contains.For any serious inquirer into Soviet Espionage, this book is a must.

New details update this truly classic survey of the evidence
Newly revised and expanded is Nigel West's coverage of the Manhattan Project, the greatest heist in history. Mortal Crimes: The Greatest Theft In History: Soviet Penetration Of The Manhattan Project presents the latest known facts on how Soviet spies stole the secrets of the atomic bomb are revealed, following the recent declassification of documents in Russia and the U.S. New details update this truly classic survey of the evidence.

An Update on the Soviet Intelligence Attack on the Bomb
This is not the book to start with for an understanding of the fascinating Soviet intelligence attack on the American/British atomic weapons program.It does fill in some blanks for readers who understand the background but it is easy to get lost in the changing code names and variety of agents and handlers.For example:"While there was to be a vital clue in the change of HURON's codename to ERNEST, ERIE is more difficult, as the unrecovered group is most likely either GEORGES or LEADER ."Nigel West does provide some appendices withtables tying code names to people.

Before reading this book, some background would be helpful.Start with Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" for a great history of development of the bomb.Other works such as Lamphere's "The FBI-KGB War" and "Bombshell" by Albright and Kunstel will give some insight into the personalities and motivations that the Soviets exploited.Some background on the Venona intercepts would be helpful such as the presentation on PBS's Nova.
... Read more

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The author traces the evolution of the Soviet political system from its origins in 1917 to the present day. He shows how power has rarely been devolved outside a particularly tightly-knit ruling elite. Special emphasis is placed on the experience of the peasantry, urban workers and professionals. ... Read more

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An introduction, complete in one volume, to the history of Russia from medieval times to the fall of Khrushchev and beyond. A study of the geographical setting in which the Russian state grew to its present super-power status is followed by five chapters which discuss the political, social, and economic history of the country, and four final chapters examine respectively the role of the Church, Soviet government and politics, the economy of the Soviet state, and the international relations of the USSR. Each chapter has been specially commissioned for this volume, and the writers are acknowledged experts in their fields. Every chapter is followed by a guide to further reading. This is perhaps the most comprehensive and authoritative collaborative history of Russia yet to appear. It will be read as a continuous account, and will also be consulted as a standard reference guide in libraries of universities, colleges, and schools wherever Russian and Soviet history, European history, and international relations are studied. It forms the first part of the three-volume Companion to Russian Studies, the two other parts of which deal with Russian language and literature, and Russian art and architecture respectively. ... Read more

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This study provides a fresh assessment of the entire course of the Cold War, and is based on insights into the structure of postwar international politics revealed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Drawing on newly released material and scholarly research from both the West and former communist states, it argues that the Cold War can only be understood by exploring the interplay between ideology, domestic politics, and military security--not only in the US and the Soviet Union, but in other states and movements with a capacity for significant military and political action. ... Read more

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One of the first historical mentions of an armed conflict in what is now Romania dates back to 335 B.C., when, prior to launching his legendary Asian campaign, Alexander the Great organized an expedition over the Western shore of the Danube to deter the Gaets and secure the frontier of the Macedonian Kingdom. Since then, the land located on the Black Sea and nestled amongst the Carpathian Mountains has seen more than its fair share of military struggles. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Ideal for world military history and reference shelves.
Romanian armed forces colonel Calin Hentea presents Brief Romanian Military History, a concise chronology and summary of conflicts in Romania from the 6th Century BC to the modern day. Thirty-five pages are devoted to the chronology alone; then, each chapter is divided into numerous short sections that describe a specific event, discovery, advance in military technology, or other turning point in Romanian Military History. Notes and a handful of black-and-white photographs and illustrations embellish this serious-minded, fact-heavy reference, ideal for world military history and reference shelves. ... Read more

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"Revolutionary Passage" is a cultural, social, and political history of Russia, during fifteen crucial years. Garcelon traces this history from perestroika to the rise of Vladimir Putin, and argues that the pressures put on the soviet system by Gorbachev's reforms gave birth to movements for democratic reform, but that the political arrangements that gave rise to the fall of communism in fact killed hopes for reform; Garcelon shows that these arrangements have been part of Russian history from the czarist era through the communist and contemporary periods. The heart of this book is a close examination of the DemRossiia movement, which Garcelon argues helped to dismantle the soviet system, but was also post-soviet Russia's first victim as the country realigned itself with external forces (like globalization and US-style economic reforms) and internal forces (such as traditional rigidities in Russian society and the subordination of movements to Boris Yeltsin's leadership). ... Read more

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An exploration of the phenomenon of peasant monarchism in 19th century Russia which contributed to the survival of the tsarist regime. Focusing on two case studies - the event of Bezdna in Kazan Province, 1861 and Chigirin district in Kiev Province during the 1870s, the author attempts to show the concrete manifestations of the problem of "naive monarchism" and to illustrate the shape and significance of the phenomenon. The author presents these case studies in the form of primary sources which are translated, interspersed with commentary, information and questions in order that the reader may participate in forming their own conclusions. ... Read more

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Russia 1855-1964 explores all the key aspects of this extremely important period in Russian history. Stephen J. Lee examines and compares the ideologies of Tsarist autocracy and Soviet Communism and the opposition to these regimes. The 1917 revolution, the use of repression and terror by these regimes and the impact of the First and Second World War on Russia are also analyzed. A major feature of the book is the guidance provided for students preparing for the synoptic module of A2 exams. ... Read more

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In 2004 and 2005, striking images from the Ukraine made their way around the world, among them boisterous, orange-clad crowds protesting electoral fraud and the hideously scarred face of a poisoned opposition candidate. Europe's second-largest country but still an immature state only recently independent, Ukraine has become a test case of post-communist democracy, as millions of people in other countries celebrated the protesters' eventual victory.
Any attempt to truly understand current events in this vibrant and unsettled land, however, must begin with the Ukraines dramatic history.Ukraine's strategic location between Russia and the West, the country's pronounced cultural regionalism, and the ugly face of post-communist politics are all anchored in Ukraine's complex past.
The first Western survey of Ukrainian history to include coverage of the Orange Revolution and its aftermath, this book narrates the deliberate construction of a modern Ukrainian nation, incorporating new Ukrainian scholarship and archival revelations of the post-communist period.
Here then is a history of the land where the strategic interests of Russia and the West have long clashed, with reverberations that resonate to this day. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A good introduction to Ukrainian history in English
With Ukraine - Birth of a modern nation, Serhy Yekelchyk has written an up to date, balanced, complete and yet compact history of Ukraine for the English speaking reader. If you want an up to date introduction to Ukrainian history and society, this is a good choice. Unlike the other standard works on Ukrainian history in English, it includes the period leading up to and following the 2004 orange revelution. It also gives the full picture in a compact manner - a feature that many who needs an introduction to Ukrainian history will appreciate.

That said, I will compare Yekelchyk's book, with other available history books on Ukraine avaiable in English, to explain why I have given it 4 instead of 5 stars.

Except for the period leading up to and following the orange revelution, that is not included in The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, Second edition (2002) by Andrew Wilson; Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine (1997) by Anna Reid and Ukraine: A History by Orest Subtelny (2000), there is not much new in Yekelchyk's book. If you haveallready read any of those books, I therefore recommend a book on the Orange revelution, rather than more or less repeating what you have allready read.

Andrew Wilson's approach of digging a bit deeper into curtain subjects, makes theese books more alive and interesting to read than Yekelchyk's approach that strictly sticks to the timeline. In addition to give more information about central subjects you want to learn more about, Wilson's appraoch makes it easier to skip a subject that is not necesary to you. Ukrainian religion and mytologies of early Ukrainian civilization are good examples of such subjects that is great to choose if you want to dig into or not. Anna Reid's anechdotical introductions to the different periods and areas of Ukraine, curtainly makes better litterature than Yekechyk not very colorful style. If a traditional history book is what you seek though, Wilson and Yevchuk will be more in accordance with what you seek than Reid. If you want more information than Wilson or Yevchuk provides - check out Subtelny's 800 pages Ukraine: a history.

One imperative question Yevchuk in my view fails to adress and answer, is why the economic perfomance of Ukraine has been so poor, compared to other former Soviet republics - both authorian and democratic (for instance Lithaunia and Belarus) and how it can be that you have to look to former Republics hit by war, collapse or both (for instance Georgia and Moldova) to find as poor economic measures as in Ukraine. Look to Verena Fritz' Statebuilding, in order to get a better understandning on how Ukrainian politics has created this mainly self-indulged pain.

As Wilson, Yevchuk includes a lot of notes, both in English and Ukrainian/Russian as well as a comprehensive suggested further reading mainly in English.

One final pice of advice. If you on this or other books of Ukrainian history finds single reviewers who has totally different views than the other reviewers - views that you find it difficult to fit with other reviews, you might want to check if the reviewer is a member of the Ukrainian Diaspora, especially Nothern American Diaspora. They often tend to have very unbalanced views on Ukrainian history and I would not give their views to much weight when it comes to how non-diaspora readers will experience the book. ... Read more