Showing titles in Russian & Soviet

WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR OPINION WRITING WINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION WINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia...

An incisive analysis of the failures that led to war in Ukraine and where we go from here, from Russian chess grandmaster and early Putin-critic, Garry Kasparov, with a foreword from Zelensky. What happens when you ignore the writing on the wall? For over a decade, Russian chess grandmaster...

This audiobook offers the first systematic analysis of Putin's two wars, placing the Second Chechen War and the War with Georgia of 2008 in their broader historical contexts. Drawing on extensive original Russian sources, Marcel H. Van Herpen analyzes in detail how Putin's wars were prepared and conducted and why they led to allegations of war crimes and genocide.

How do separatist conflicts arise and spread? When does separatism become a cover for a foreign aggression? How do local communities respond when state institutions collapse, and militants take over? The armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine, which started eight years before Russia's full-scale...

Two opposing narratives vie to explain the strategic future of Europe, one geopolitical and one economic, and both center on the same resource: natural gas. In The Bridge, Thane Gustafson, an expert on Russian oil and gas, argues that the political rivalries that capture the lion's share of media attention must be viewed alongside multiple business interests and differences in economic ideologies. With a dense network of pipelines linking Europe and Russia, natural gas serves as a bridge that unites the region through common interests.

No nation is a stranger to war, but for Russians war is a central part of who they are. Their "motherland" has been the battlefield where some of the largest armies have clashed, the most savage battles have been fought, the highest death tolls paid. Having prevailed over Mongol hordes and vanquished Napoleon and Hitler, many Russians believe no other nation has sacrificed so much for the world.

Fifty years after his death, Stalin remains a figure of powerful and dark fascination. The almost unfathomable scale of his crimes–as many as 20 million Soviets died in his purges and infamous Gulag–has given him the lasting distinction as a personification of evil in the twentieth century...

Every American president since the end of the Cold War has called for better relations with Russia. But each has seen relations get worse by the time he left office. Now, the two countries are facing off in a virtual war being fought without clear goals or boundaries. Why? George Beebe argues that new game-changing technologies, disappearing rules of the game, and distorted perceptions on both sides are combining to lock Washington and Moscow into an escalatory spiral that they do not recognize.

Media and public discussion tends to understand Russian politics as a direct reflection of Vladimir Putin's seeming omnipotence or Russia's unique history and culture. Yet Russia is remarkably similar to other autocracies - and recognizing this illuminates the inherent limits to Putin's power. Weak Strongman challenges the conventional wisdom about Putin's Russia, highlighting the difficult trade-offs that confront the Kremlin on issues ranging from election fraud and repression to propaganda and foreign policy.

Wartime Russia is drowning in fascist symbols. Zealous patriots attack journalists, opposition activists, and anyone suspected of betraying the motherland. Russians are urged to join the cause by hordes of online trolls and sleek videos of angry young men bellowing patriotic slogans. State television terrifies viewers with trumped up tales of anti-Russian conspiracies and genocidal yearnings. Child soldiers proudly parade across Red Square. This is Russia in the 2020s: a land of performative rage and nationalist untruth, where play-acting, pretense, and broken promises are a way of life.

In the tradition of John Hersey’s Hiroshima, a terse and piercing look at a critical episode in the Ukraine War, from the award-winning author of They Will Have to Die Now. In March of 2022, three weeks after invading Ukraine, Russian forces bombed the shelter housed in the Donetsk Regional...

Anticipating a new dawn of freedom after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russians could hardly have foreseen the reality of their future a decade later: a country impoverished and controlled at every level by organized crime. This riveting book views the 1990s reform period through the experiences of individual citizens, revealing the changes that have swept Russia and their effect on Russia's age-old ways of thinking.

This book analyzes the evolution of Russian military thought and how Russia's current thinking about war is reflected in recent crises. What Jonsson reveals is that Russia's conception of the very nature of war is now changing, as Russian elites see information warfare and political subversion as the most important ways to conduct contemporary war. Since information warfare and political subversion are below the traditional threshold of armed violence, this has blurred the boundaries between war and peace. 

The Soviet Union was one of the most secretive states that ever existed. Defended by a complex apparatus of rules and checks administered by the secret police, the Soviet state had seemingly unprecedented capabilities based on its near monopoly of productive capital, monolithic authority, and secretive decision making. But behind the scenes, Soviet secrecy was double-edged. Mark Harrison combines quantitative and qualitative evidence to evaluate the impact of secrecy on Soviet state capacity from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A "Best Non-Fiction to Read This Year" Selection from The New Statesman A magisterial, revisionist narrative history of the Soviet Union in its post-Stalin heyday, bringing a forgotten society to vivid life and offering a new explanation for how it suddenly collapsed. To those of us in the West...

Russia: What Everyone Needs to Know provides fundamental information about the origins, evolution, and current affairs of the Russian state and society. The story begins with Russia's geographic endowment, proceeds through its experiences as a kingdom and empire, and continues through the USSR's three-quarters of a century, and finally the breakup of that regime a generation ago. Drawing on trends within Russia and on ratings and rankings compiled by international organizations, Colton discusses the challenges facing the country and the realistic options for coping with them.

Wolf Messing: The True Story of Russia’s Greatest Psychic by Tatiana Lungin is the first comprehensive biography of the renowned psychic Wolf Messing. This fascinating memoir recounts Messing’s rise to fame in Europe, his escape from Nazi persecution, and his incredible career in the USSR, where he became a psychic sensation even under Stalin’s scrutiny. In this, the first biography and personal memoir of Wolf Messing to appear in the West, Tatiana Lungin limns a revealing portrait of one of the greatest psychic performers of the twentieth century.

2021 GRAMMY Winner for Best Spoken Word Album #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Big Oil and Gas Versus Democracy—Winner Take All “A rollickingly well-written book, filled with fascinating, exciting, and alarming stories about the impact of the oil and gas industry on the world today...

Ein Kaleidoskop voller akkurater, hellsichtiger und ungeschönter Beobachtungen des Bestsellerautors zur politischen und gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung Russlands während der letzten 10 Jahre bis heute. Glukhovskys scharfer Blick auf die Ereignisse bietet eine erhellende Analyse der inneren und äußeren Verfasstheit des Landes und zeigt, warum Russland sehenden Auges in den Untergang steuert — und wie lange sich das schon abzeichnete. Ein klarer Blick auf die frühen Signale und den Sog des russischen Niedergangs und zugleich ein brillantes Panorama der Gegenwart von einem Meister der satirischen, scharfzüngigen Erzählkunst.

Brought to you by Penguin. Long Live the King. Since his re-election as US president, Donald Trump has made good on things he only dreamed of accomplishing in his first term. In six short months he has smashed constitutional constraints, trampled on free speech, suborned the judiciary, demonised...