Showing titles in Russian & Soviet

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.

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.

In this courageous and unflinching book, award-winning journalist Jessikka Aro interweaves her own dramatic story as a target of Russian social media propaganda with accounts from many internationally known critics of the Kremlin, who share their own stories of being targeted by Russia’s multifaceted cyber warfare campaigns.

From comedian to president to freedom fighter, this is the story of Volodymyr Zelensky, the man who stood up to Vladimir Putin and forever changed the world. The authors of Zelensky chronicle his rise, discuss the changing attitudes toward him by Ukrainians there and abroad, and include some of his most stirring speeches.

Russia is famous for its vodka, and its culture of extreme intoxication. But just as vodka is central to the lives of many Russians, it is also central to understanding Russian history and politics. In Vodka Politics, Mark Lawrence Schrad argues that debilitating societal alcoholism is not hard-wired into Russians' genetic code, but rather their autocratic political system, which has long wielded vodka as a tool of statecraft. Through a series of historical investigations stretching from Ivan the Terrible through Vladimir Putin, Vodka Politics presents the secret history of the Russian state itself.

What do ordinary Russians think of Putin? Who are his supporters? And why might their support now be faltering? Alive with the voices and experiences of ordinary Russians and elites alike, Sam Greene and Graeme Robertson craft a compellingly original account of contemporary Russian politics.

For months, the omens had pointed in one scarcely believable direction: Russia was about to invade Ukraine. And yet, the world was stunned by the epochal scale of the assault that began in February 2022. It was an attempt by one nation to devour another. The Kremlin wanted nothing less than a new world order. Invasion is Luke Harding's gripping chronicle of the war that changed everything.

In June 2023, the Wagner Group assembled an armed convoy that included tanks and rocket launchers and set out on what seemed like a journey to take control of Moscow. The last person to attempt such a venture was Adolf Hitler. Wagner’s power began from patronage, then grew from international theft and extortion, until it was so great it exposed the weakness of Russia’s conventional military and became a threat to the Russian state, one that was not demonstrably eliminated until a private jet containing Wagner’s core commanders was blown up in midair.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it invaded Georgia. Both states are part of Russia's "near abroad"—newly independent states that were once part of the Soviet Union. While the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 faded from the headlines in the wake of the global recession, the geopolitical contest that created it did not. Six years later, the specter of a revanchist Russia returned when Putin's forces invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula. Eminent political geographer Gerard Toal moves beyond the polemical rhetoric to study the underlying territorial conflicts and geopolitical struggles.

Undeterred by eight years of timid US sanctions, Vladimir Putin ordered his full-scale assault on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In the hours that followed across the world, Western leaders weaponised economic tools to counter an unprecedented land grab by a nuclear-armed power. What followed was an undeniably world-changing financial experiment that risked throwing the world into a devastating recession.

This book is Khodorkovsky's account of what is happening in Russia today and what could happen in the future. Putin will not last forever: sooner or later, there will be a post-Putin era. But Russia's history has been deeply shaped by an autocratic trap: a revolution against an autocracy has produced another autocracy, followed by another revolution and another autocracy, and so on. If Russia is to find its place as a constructive partner in a global community of civilized nations, then it has to escape this vicious cycle.

What is Vladimir Putin up to? This book examines how the mentality of Putin and his team - the code of Putinism - has shaped Russian politics over the past two decades. It explains not only the thoughts and ideas that motivate Putin's decisions, but also the set of emotions and habits that influence how Putin and his close allies view the world. While some observers portray Putin as either a cold-blooded pragmatist or a strident Russian nationalist, Taylor provides a more nuanced and compelling interpretation of Putin's motives and actions.

In today’s chaotic world, where the multiplication of information sources creates competing narratives, credibility is the key to winning the war of ideas. This is the reason why governments and corporations resort to astroturfing - creation of ostensibly grassroots movements set up to advance political agendas and commercial campaigns. The democratization of information and polarization of politics offer a perfect storm.

In 1949, a newly minted branch of the CIA (the precursor of today’s National Clandestine Service), flush with money and burning with determination to roll back the Iron Curtain, embarked on the first paramilitary operation in the history of the agency. They hatched an elaborate plan, coordinated with the British Secret Intelligence Service, to foment popular rebellion and detach Albania, the weakest of the Soviet satellites in Europe, from Moscow’s orbit. The operation resulted in dismal failure and was shut down by 1954.

Ten Days That Shook the World is John Reed's phenomenal firsthand account of the October Revolution, leading up to the storming of the Winter Palace and the assumption of power by the Bolsheviks in 1917.

Anne Applebaum, ganadora del Premio Pulitzer por Gulag y finalista del National Book Award por El Telón de Acero, cuenta en Hambruna roja la reveladora historia de uno de los peores crímenes de la era soviética. En 1929, la gran colectivización puesta en marcha por Stalin forzó a millones de campesinos a entregar sus tierras. El resultado fue una hambruna sin precedentes; al menos cinco millones de personas perecieron entre 1931 y 1934 en la URSS, de los cuales cuatro eran ucranianos.

The heroic story of Pussy Riot, who resurrected the power of truth in a society built on lies. On February 21, 2012, five young women entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. In neon-colored dresses, tights, and balaclavas, they performed a “punk prayer” beseeching the “Mother of God” to “get rid of Putin.” They were quickly shut down by security, and in the weeks and months that followed, three of the women were arrested and tried, and two were sentenced to a remote prison colony. But the incident captured international headlines, and footage of it went viral.

The State and Revolution (1917), by Vladimir Lenin, describes the role of the State in society, the necessity of proletarian revolution, and the theoretic inadequacies of social democracy in achieving revolution to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin began the composition of an early draft of State and Revolution while in exile in Switzerland in 1916, under the title "Marxism on the State". "Soviets", legislative bodies of workers and peasants were the de facto governments of Petrograd and many smaller cities.

The Plot to Destroy Trump exposes the deep state conspiracy to discredit and even depose the legitimately elected President Donald J. Trump with the fabricated Russian dossier, including: how the unsubstantiated accusations of collusion began with former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, and the Democratic National Convention on behalf of Hillary Clinton; the opportunistic role played by Russia’s FSB and former KGB agents, according to Putin’s strategy to create chaos in the West; and much more.

April of 1958 - the Iron Curtain was at its heaviest, and the outcome of the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition seemed preordained. Nonetheless, as star musicians from across the globe descended on Moscow, an unlikely favorite emerged: Van Cliburn, a polite, lanky Texan whose passionate virtuosity captured the Russian spirit. This is the story of what unfolded that spring - for Cliburn and the other competitors, jurors, party officials, and citizens of the world who were touched by the outcome.