Soviet War

If you want to discover the captivating history of the Cambridge Five, then pay attention.... During the poverty-stricken years of the Great Depression, when Britain’s financial markets plummeted and the poor and wealthy alike doubted the economic systems in which they participated, the potential of one political ideal shone like no other: Communism. Young intellectuals from the country’s very best schools discussed the premise of labor-value versus wealth-value, and a great many of them became card-carrying members of the Communist Party in Britain.

In 1979, alarmed Soviet leaders watched the growing civil war in Afghanistan with trepidation. Russia’s neighbor had been a close ally for many years, acting as a buffer between Russia and British India, proving vital in the “Great Game” between the two empires. Various coups had, by this point, led to a Moscow-friendly government in Kabul, but things were not playing out as the Soviets had hoped.

The justification for the atomic bomb was simple: it would defeat Hitler and end the Second World War faster, saving lives. The reality was different. Fallout dismantles the conventional story of why the atom bomb was built. Peter Watson has found new documents showing that long before the...

From an acclaimed historian, a sweeping study of the past, present, and future of the Great Powers, revealing the new rules of global leadership From the dawn of the modern era to the end of the Cold War, global history was defined by rivalries between Great Powers. In the West, this meant the...

At Sea Against the Soviet Fleet examines the critical transformation of naval intelligence during a pivotal era marked by the Cold War and the Vietnam conflict. Bryan Leese meticulously details how US Navy operational intelligence evolved to meet the complexities of modern naval warfare, particularly in response to the increasing threats posed by the Soviet Navy. This book begins by examining the Vietnam War and the institutionalization of shipboard operational intelligence, or what Navy intelligence calls Opintel.

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena—dazzling, poignant, and lyrical interwoven stories about family, sacrifice, the legacy of war, and the redemptive power of art. This stunning, exquisitely written collection introduces a cast of remarkable...

A “memorable series of portraits of the working class people who defended Tiananmen Square” (The New York Review of Books) during the protests from the award-winning poet, dissident, and “one of the most original and remarkable Chinese writers of our time” (Philip Gourevitch). Much has...

Initially a victory line where Allies met at the end of WWII, the Iron Curtain quickly became the front of a new kind of war. But what has the Iron Curtain left in its wake? Timothy Phillips travels its full 3,000-mile route to craft this new people's history of a defining twentieth-century conflict. Here, in the borderlands where a powerful clash of civilizations took form in concrete and barbed wire, he uncovers the remarkable stories of everyday people forever imprinted by life in the Curtain's shadow.

The newest immensely original undertaking from the historian who gave us the defining two-volume portrait of Hitler, Fateful Choices puts Ian Kershaw's analytical and storytelling gifts on dazzling display. From May 1940 to December 1941, the leaders of the world's six major powers made a series of related decisions that determined the final outcome of World War II and shaped the course of human destiny.

Previous histories have focused on the KGB, leaving military intelligence and the special service - which specialized in codes and ciphers - lurking in the shadows. Drawing on previously neglected Russian sources, Haslam reveals how both were in fact crucial to the survival of the Soviet state. This was especially true after Stalin's death in 1953, as the Cold War heated up and dedicated Communist agents the regime had relied upon - Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs, Donald Maclean - were betrayed.

During the Cold War, the political leadership of the Soviet Union avidly sought intelligence about its main adversary, the United States. Although effective on an operational level, Soviet leaders and their intelligence chiefs fell short when it came to analyzing intelligence. There were, however, important changes over time. Ultimately the views of an enlightened Soviet leader, Gorbachev, trumped the ideological blinders of his predecessors and the intelligence service's dedication to an endless duel.

Paul D'Anieri explores the dynamics within Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia, and between Russia and the West, that emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union and eventually led to war in 2014. Proceeding chronologically, this book shows how Ukraine's separation from Russia in 1991, at the time called a "civilized divorce", led to what many are now calling "a new Cold War".

The spy novel emerged from the intrigues of the mid-20th century for good reason. The war with the Third Reich involved an unseen cloak-and-dagger struggle between the participants, but beyond that, an even larger and longer contest took place in the shadows. The men responsible for this unprecedented leaking of life-or-death information would enter history as the Cambridge Five - though in fact, they may have been only the core of a much larger group.

A sweeping, in-depth history of NSA, whose famous “cult of silence” has left the agency shrouded in mystery for decades The National Security Agency was born out of the legendary codebreaking programs of World War II that cracked the famed Enigma machine and other German and Japanese...

From bestselling author Stephen Kinzer, the untold story of the secret 75-year American campaign that set the stage for war in Ukraine Until the Russian invasion in 2022, few Americans could find Ukraine on a map. Once the fighting began, however, support for its cause surged. The reason was...

The thrilling story of two Cold War spies, CIA case officer Jack Platt and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko -- improbable friends at a time when they should have been anything but. In 1978, CIA maverick Jack Platt and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko were new arrivals on the Washington, DC intelligence...

No nation suffered more losses during the Second World War than the Soviet Union. The figure most historians recognize as roughly accurate is 20 million. The exact figure is impossible to tally for a number of reasons: destroyed records, inexact pre-war records, Soviet politicization of the population figures before and after the war, and much more. No matter what the exact total was, what is known is that the Soviet population only recovered its losses from the war in the late 1950s.

An immigration journalist and her wife trace their family’s intertwined past to unearth a history of how hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews survived Hitler’s Holocaust at the brutal hands of Stalin—a story that sheds light on the enduring power of hope and love. Daniela Gerson and her...

Entre 1979 y 1989 un millón de tropas soviéticas combatieron en una guerra devastadora en Afganistán que provocó más de 50.000 bajas y acabó con la juventud y la humanidad de varias decenas de miles de soldados más. Los muertos soviéticos volvían a casa en ataúdes de zinc sellados mientras el estado no reconocía ni la mera existencia del conflicto. Svetlana Alexievich expone la verdad de la guerra afgano-soviética: la belleza del país y los abusos del ejército, las muertes y las mutilaciones, la profusión de productos occidentales, las vidas destrozadas de los veteranos.

In Collisions, Michael Kimmage, a historian and former State Department official who focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, offers a wide-angle, historically informed account of the origins of the current Russia-Ukraine war.