Showing titles in Russia

Harold Lamb's superb story-telling and clear, sharp scholarship are focused on Peter the Great, his gigantic labors to raise Russia in one generation to cultural equality with Europe, and his efforts to mold and shape a sprawling empire. At the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648, the city of Moscow had extended its sway eastward through the Asiatic continent. People began to ask, "Will the city control the continent?" or "Will the continent control the city?" These were crucial questions...questions that continue to bedevil Russians to this day.

The Black Russian is the incredible story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, born in 1872 to former slaves who became prosperous farmers in Mississippi. After leaving the South and working as a waiter and valet in Chicago and Brooklyn, Frederick sought greater freedom in London, then crisscrossed Europe, and - in a highly unusual choice for a black American at the time - went to Russia in 1899. Because he found no color line there, Frederick made Moscow his home. He renamed himself Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas, married twice, acquired a mistress, and took Russian citizenship.

On August 8, 1993, a single bullet to the head killed Freddie Woodruff, the Central Intelligence Agency’s station chief in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Within hours, police had a suspect - a vodka-soaked village bumpkin named Anzor Sharmaidze. A tidy explanation quickly followed: It was a tragic accident. US diplomats hailed Georgia’s swift work. Yet the bullet that killed Woodruff was never found, and key witnesses have since retracted their testimony, saying they were beaten and forced to identify Sharmaidze. But if he didn’t do it, who did?

What pushed Blunt, Burgess, Cairncross, Maclean and Philby into Soviet hands? With access to recently released papers and other neglected documents, this sharp analysis of the intelligence world examines how and why these men and others betrayed their country and what this cost Britain and its allies.

Based on a trove of new archival discoveries, The Last Tsar narrates how Nicholas’s resistance to reform doomed the monarchy. Encompassing the captivating personalities of the era—the bumbling Nicholas, his spiteful wife Alexandra, the family’s faith healer Rasputin—it untangles the dramatic struggle by Russia’s aristocratic, military, and legislative elite to reform the monarchy.

Step into a riveting exploration of Russia and witness its incredible cultural legacy. As the home of famous thinkers, artists, poets, and military strategists throughout the ages, Russia holds a special place in our collective history. This biography explores their legacy, recounting the glorious triumphs and heart wrenching tragedies of this giant on the world stage. You’ll be taken on an unparalleled journey to witness Russia’s past, retracing its steps from ancient times to the modern day.

John Reed's first-hand description of the October Revolution was written in early 1918 and published in the USA the following year. The veracity and impact of his dynamic snapshot-style reportage made the book an instant best seller, and it has since become a modern classic, inspiring films including Sergei Eisenstein's October and the Oscar-winning Reds.

At the Big Three conferences of World War II, Stalin persuasively played the role of a great world leader. Even astute observers like George F. Kennan concluded that the United States and Great Britain should view Stalin as a modern-day tsarist-like figure whose primary concerns lay in international strategy and power politics, not in ideology. Now Robert Gellately uses recently uncovered documents to make clear that, in fact, the dictator was an unwavering revolutionary merely biding his time.

The Soviet Union killed over six hundred thousand whales in the twentieth century, many of them illegally and secretly. That catch helped bring many whale species to near extinction by the 1970s, and the impacts of this loss of life still ripple through today's oceans. In this new account, based on formerly secret Soviet archives and interviews with ex-whalers, environmental historian Ryan Tucker Jones offers a complete history of the role the Soviet Union played in the whales' destruction.

Russia is an assortment of the world’s most beautiful cultures and religions. But how did Russia become home to such a diverse population and tradition that is redolent of so many parts of the world? How much does Russia owe to its spellbinding steppe in respect to its unparalleled history? This audiobook uncovers the mystery behind this and many other little known facts about Russia.

Николай Михайлович Карамзин (1766–1826) — поэт, писатель, издатель "Московского журнала" и "Вестника Европы", последний историограф России, автор "Бедной Лизы" и "Истории государства Российского" в 12-ти томах. Перед вами оригинальное, богато проиллюстрированное издание VII–XII томов "Истории государства Российского" Николая Михайловича Карамзина, охватывающее период от начала XVI до начала XVII в. В книге повествуется о правлении Василия Иоанновича, Ивана Грозного, Федора Иоанновича и последовавшим за этим Смутном времени.

Postcards from Absurdistan is a cultural and political history of Prague from 1938, when the Nazis destroyed Czechoslovakia's artistically vibrant liberal democracy, to 1989, when the country's socialist regime collapsed after more than four decades of communist dictatorship. Derek Sayer shows that Prague's twentieth century, far from being a story of inexorable progress toward some "end of history," whether fascist, communist, or democratic, was a tragicomedy of recurring nightmares played out in a land Czech dissidents dubbed Absurdistanv.

Protests continue in Belarus in the aftermath of 2020's fraught presidential election. In this updated edition of his exploration of Belarus's complicated road to nationhood since it gained independence in 1991, Andrew Wilson has added two new chapters that reveal the extent of Aliaksandr Lukashenka's grip on power, the growth of the opposition movement and the violent crackdown that followed the vote. Wilson also examines the prospects for Europe as a whole of either Lukashenka's downfall or his survival with Russian support.

In Intent to Destroy, political scientist Eugene Finkel uncovers these deep roots of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Ukraine is a key borderland between Russia and the West, and, following the rise of Russian nationalism in the nineteenth century, dominating Ukraine became the cornerstone of Russian policy. Russia has long used genocidal tactics—killings, deportations, starvation, and cultural destruction—to successfully crush Ukrainian efforts to chart an independent path. As Finkel shows, today’s violence is simply a more extreme version of the Kremlin’s long-standing policy.

The word "holodomor" derives from a combination of two Ukrainian words: holod (hunger) and mor (extermination). This term is used to describe one of the least-known events of state-sponsored mass starvation: the Great Famine of Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933. Around four million Ukrainians died during the famine, and yet, the extent of this human catastrophe was virtually unknown in the West. Up to 1991, the Soviet Union refused to acknowledge that any famine had taken place in Ukraine at all.

La historia de Rusia se ha visto marcada como pocas por el empleo de mitos con fines políticos. Ningún otro país ha reinventado su propio relato con tanta frecuencia, en un esfuerzo perpetuo por adaptarse a los cambios de las ideologías dominantes, y esa tendencia es precisamente un aspecto vital de su cultura. Para comprender lo que depara el futuro del país—y lo que significa el régimen de Putin para Rusia y para el resto del mundo—debemos desentrañar las ideas y los significados de esa historia.

Михаил Николаевич Романов, ставший императором после чудовищного по силе взрыва в Зимнем дворце, в тело которого подселился наш современник, пытается провести преобразования, которые необходимы для срочной модернизации государства. Очень сложно работать в ситуации, когда у тебя нет верной и преданной команды соратников, а врагов множество, и одним из самых опасных врагов остается империя, над которой никогда не заходит солнце.

Русско-японская война в этой истории началась 16 августа 1903 года. Россия, используя боевых пловцов и торпедные катера, уверенно разгромила военно-морской флот Японии и английских "добровольцев". На суше, перейдя реку Ялу, подразделения русской армии подошли к Сеулу. Десантом практически полностью захвачен остров Хоккайдо — северная жемчужина Японии. Японская империя на грани краха. Чтобы не допустить её капитуляции, Англия при поддержке САСШ готова начать боевые действия против Российской империи в Туркестане.

Последняя патриотическая — это книга о ненастной военной осени 2014 года в Донецкой Народной Республике. Автор, непосредственный участник описываемых событий, рассказывает о судьбах людей, с которыми он жил и сражался плечом к плечу. О тех, кто в 2014 году оставил семью, работу и мирную жизнь, взял автомат и пошел защищать Родину. Это для таких, как они, за ЦУМом в центре Макеевки висел огромный, замытый дождями плакат — бородатый ополченец в тельняшке, с автоматом наперевес, и, точно огонь, слова: "Стань легендой! Армия Донецкой Республики".

История Петра I — незавершенный исторический труд гениального российского поэта, "солнца русской поэзии", драматурга и прозаика А. С. Пушкина (1799–1837). В нем представлена хронология событий времени правления Петра Великого. Пушкин планировал на ее основании написать Историю Петра I максимум через год. Параллельно он трудился над "Историей Пугачева" и "Капитанской дочкой". Работу прервала дуэль… Николай I запретил печатать рукопись. Причина — автор с большой для того времени смелостью позволил себе рассказать не только о положительных, но и отрицательных качествах императора.