The Russians

Author : Gregory Feifer
Publisher : Twelve
ISBN 13 : 1455509655
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Russians written by Gregory Feifer and published by Twelve. This book was released on 2014-02-18 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From former NPR Moscow correspondent Gregory Feifer comes an incisive portrait that draws on vivid personal stories to portray the forces that have shaped the Russian character for centuries-and continue to do so today. Russians explores the seeming paradoxes of life in Russia by unraveling the nature of its people: what is it in their history, their desires, and their conception of themselves that makes them baffling to the West? Using the insights of his decade as a journalist in Russia, Feifer corrects pervasive misconceptions by showing that much of what appears inexplicable about the country is logical when seen from the inside. He gets to the heart of why the world's leading energy producer continues to exasperate many in the international community. And he makes clear why President Vladimir Putin remains popular even as the gap widens between the super-rich and the great majority of poor. Traversing the world's largest country from the violent North Caucasus to Arctic Siberia, Feifer conducted hundreds of intimate conversations about everything from sex and vodka to Russia's complex relationship with the world. From fabulously wealthy oligarchs to the destitute elderly babushki who beg in Moscow's streets, he tells the story of a society bursting with vitality under a leadership rooted in tradition and often on the edge of collapse despite its authoritarian power. Feifer also draws on formative experiences in Russia's past and illustrative workings of its culture to shed much-needed light on the purposely hidden functioning of its society before, during, and after communism. Woven throughout is an intimate, first-person account of his family history, from his Russian mother's coming of age among Moscow's bohemian artistic elite to his American father's harrowing vodka-fueled run-ins with the KGB. What emerges is a rare portrait of a unique land of extremes whose forbidding geography, merciless climate, and crushing corruption has nevertheless produced some of the world's greatest art and some of its most remarkable scientific advances. Russians is an expertly observed, gripping profile of a people who will continue challenging the West for the foreseeable future.

Author : Geoffrey A. Hosking
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674004733
Total Pages : 776 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Russia and the Russians written by Geoffrey A. Hosking and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the history of the Russian Empire from the Mongol Invasion, through the Bolshevik Revolution, to the aftereffects of the Cold War.

Author : Hedrick Smith
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0307829383
Total Pages : 925 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The New Russians written by Hedrick Smith and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-12-05 with total page 925 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Russians, a “lively and provocative”* analysis of the Soviet Union in its twilight years. *The New York Times Book Review Even from afar, the transformation in the Soviet Union held a special fascination for all of us, and not only because it affected our destiny, our survival, even the changing nature of our own society. What happened there riveted our interest for a deeper reason: It was a modern enactment of one of the archetypal stories of human existence, that of the struggle from darkness to light, from poverty toward prosperity, from dictatorship toward democracy. It represented an affirmation of the relentless human struggle to break free from the bonds of hierarchy and dogma, to strive for a better life, for stronger, richer values. It was an affirmation of the human capacity for change, growth, renewal. The New Russians is about how that story of change began and what this change meant for the Russian people—and for the rest of the world.

Author : Jeremy Kuzmarov
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1583676961
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Russians Are Coming, Again written by Jeremy Kuzmarov and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Karl Marx famously wrote in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon that history repeats itself, “first as tragedy, then as farce.” The Cold War waged between the United States and Soviet Union from 1945 until the latter's dissolution in 1991 was a great tragedy, resulting in millions of civilian deaths in proxy wars, and a destructive arms race that diverted money from social spending and nearly led to nuclear annihilation. The New Cold War between the United States and Russia is playing out as farce – a dangerous one at that. The Russians Are Coming, Again is a red flag to restore our historical consciousness about U.S.-Russian relations, and how denying this consciousness is leading to a repetition of past follies. Kuzmarov and Marciano's book is timely and trenchant. The authors argue that the Democrats’ strategy, backed by the corporate media, of demonizing Russia and Putin in order to challenge Trump is not only dangerous, but also, based on the evidence so far, unjustified, misguided, and a major distraction. Grounding their argument in all-but-forgotten U.S.-Russian history, such as the 1918-20 Allied invasion of Soviet Russia, the book delivers a panoramic narrative of the First Cold War, showing it as an all-too-avoidable catastrophe run by the imperatives of class rule and political witch-hunts. The distortion of public memory surrounding the First Cold War has set the groundwork for the New Cold War, which the book explains is a key feature, skewing the nation’s politics yet again. This is an important, necessary book, one that, by including accounts of the wisdom and courage of the First Cold War's victims and dissidents, will inspire a fresh generation of radicals in today's new, dangerously farcical times.

Author : Norman M. Naimark
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674784055
Total Pages : 634 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Russians in Germany written by Norman M. Naimark and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1945, when the Red Army marched in, eastern Germany was not "occupied" but "liberated." This, until the recent collapse of the Soviet Bloc, is what passed for history in the German Democratic Republic. Now, making use of newly opened archives in Russia and Germany, Norman Naimark reveals what happened during the Soviet occupation of eastern Germany from 1945 through 1949. His book offers a comprehensive look at Soviet policies in the occupied zone and their practical consequences for Germans and Russians alike--and, ultimately, for postwar Europe. In rich and lucid detail, Naimark captures the mood and the daily reality of the occupation, the chaos and contradictions of a period marked by rape and repression, the plundering of factories, the exploitation of German science, and the rise of the East German police state. Never have these practices and their place in the overall Soviet strategy, particularly the political development of the zone, received such thorough treatment. Here we have our first clear view of how the Russians regarded the postwar settlement and the German question, how they made policy on issues from reparations to technology transfer to the acquisition of uranium, how they justified their goals, how they met them or failed, and how they changed eastern Germany in the process. The Russians in Germany also takes us deep into the politics of culture as Naimark explores the ways in which Soviet officers used film, theater, and education to foster the Bolshevization of the zone. Unique in its broad, comparative approach to the Soviet military government in Germany, this book fills in a missing--and ultimately fascinating--chapter in the history of modern Europe.

Author : Colin Thubron
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0061874779
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Among the Russians written by Colin Thubron and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "There is no travel writer working today in English who possesses such a remarkable combination of the observant and the lyric gifts--the most poetic of us all." — Jan Morris The first book in Thubron's Russian trilogy AMONG THE RUSSIANS, called "superb" by the New York Times Book Review, recounts Thurbon's 10,000 mile journey throughout half of Russia's cities and countryside. Here is a fresh perspective on the last tumultuous years of the Soviet Union and an exquisitely poetic travelogue. With a keen grasp of Russia's history, a deep appreciation for its architecture and iconography, and an inexhaustible enthusiasm for its people and its culture, Colin Thubron is the perfect guide to a country most of us will never get to know firsthand. Here, we can walk down western Russia's country roads, rest in its villages, and explore some of the most engaging cities in the world. Beautifully written and infinitely insightful, Among the Russians is vivid, compelling travel writing that will also appeal to readers of history and current events—and to anyone captivated by the shape and texture of one of the world's most enigmatic cultures.

Author : Richard M. Fried
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199923744
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! written by Richard M. Fried and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999-08-12 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores a widely lived yet little remembered facet of America's cultural and political history: the Cold War as experienced at the grassroots level. Here, Fried traces the cresting of modern patriotic observance during World War II and then shows how patriotic and civic activists afterwards labored to recreate a remembered unity and commitment in the tension-filled Cold War era. A variety of national and local entities mounted campaigns "to sell America to the Americans" through "rededication" celebrations like Know Your America Week and Freedom Week. The American Heritage Foundation wheeled out the Freedom Train, which carried seminal documents of the nation's past to railroad depots across the US. Fried revisits the 1950 "Communist invasion" of Mosinee, Wisconsin, when ersatz Stalinists harassed and bullied citizens and the town's eateries served only potato soup and black bread. He also depicts the creation and inauguration of new patriotic events like Loyalty Day and Armed Forces Day. Meticulously researched, this book recreates a colorful, sometimes comical, and always revealing dimension of our history.

Author : Geoffrey A. Hosking
Publisher : Belknap Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674061958
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.50/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Russia and the Russians written by Geoffrey A. Hosking and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hosking follows the country's history from the Slavs' first emergence in the historical record in the sixth century C.E. to the Russians' persistent appearances in today's headlines. The second edition covers the presidencies of Vladimir Putin and Dmitrii Medvedev and the struggle to make Russia a viable functioning state for all its citizens.

Author : Britta Johnson
Publisher : Singapore Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Russians written by Britta Johnson and published by Singapore Books. This book was released on 2000 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In RUSSIANS, Gregory Feifer explains the seeming paradoxes of Russian life by unraveling the nature of its people: what is it in their history, their desires, and their conception of themselves that makes them baffling to the West? Using the insights of his eight years as a journalist in Russia, Feifer corrects pervasive misconceptions about the country by showing that much of what appears inexplicable is actually logical when seen from the inside. He gets to the heart of why the world's leading energy producer continues to exasperate many in the international community. And he makes clear why President Vladimir Putin remains popular even as the gap widens between the super-rich and the great majority of poor. Drawing on his family history as well as formative experiences in Russia's past and illustrative workings of its culture, Feifer sheds much-needed light on the purposely hidden functioning of its society before, during and after communism. RUSSIANS is an...

Author : Douglas Smith
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374718385
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Russian Job written by Douglas Smith and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning historian reveals the harrowing, little-known story of an American effort to save the newly formed Soviet Union from disaster After decades of the Cold War and renewed tensions, in the wake of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, cooperation between the United States and Russia seems impossible to imagine—and yet, as Douglas Smith reveals, it has a forgotten but astonishing historical precedent. In 1921, facing one of the worst famines in history, the new Soviet government under Vladimir Lenin invited the American Relief Administration, Herbert Hoover’s brainchild, to save communist Russia from ruin. For two years, a small, daring band of Americans fed more than ten million men, women, and children across a million square miles of territory. It was the largest humanitarian operation in history—preventing the loss of countless lives, social unrest on a massive scale, and, quite possibly, the collapse of the communist state. Now, almost a hundred years later, few in either America or Russia have heard of the ARA. The Soviet government quickly began to erase the memory of American charity. In America, fanatical anti-communism would eclipse this historic cooperation with the Soviet Union. Smith resurrects the American relief mission from obscurity, taking the reader on an unforgettable journey from the heights of human altruism to the depths of human depravity. The story of the ARA is filled with political intrigue, espionage, the clash of ideologies, violence, adventure, and romance, and features some of the great historical figures of the twentieth century. In a time of cynicism and despair about the world’s ability to confront international crises, The Russian Job is a riveting account of a cooperative effort unmatched before or since.