Russian & Soviet

In 2010, the words “earthquake swarm” entered the lexicon in Oklahoma. That same year, a trove of Michael Jackson memorabilia—including his iconic crystal-encrusted white glove—was sold at auction for over $1 million....

In a seamless meshing of exhaustive research, brilliant synthesis and narrative élan, Simon Sebag Montefiore chronicles the life and lives of Stalin’s court from the time of his acclamation as “leader” in 1929, five years after Lenin’s death, until his own death in 1953 at the age of 73....

This is the intimate story of 20 tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition....

Celebrated historian Orlando Figes presents a brilliantly colored account of the myths that have shaped and reshaped Russia’s identity and politics from its founding....

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Dead Hand comes the riveting story of the CIA's most valuable spy in the Soviet Union and an evocative portrait of the agency's Moscow station....

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Yaroslav Trofimov has spent months on end at the heart of the conflict, very often on its front lines....

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was one of the most cataclysmic events in world history, profoundly shaping politics, international relations, social patterns, economics and science in the century that followed....

A powerfully argued and utterly definitive account of a murderous tyrant we thought we understood, Hitler is essential listening for anyone seeking to understand the origins and outcomes of the Second World War....

Acclaimed journalist Simon Shuster gives us the first inside account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the perspective of President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team, who granted him unprecedented access....

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.

Once Upon a Time in Russia is the untold true story of the larger-than-life billionaire oligarchs who surfed the waves of privatization to reap riches....

The first comprehensive, fully up-to-date biography of Vladimir Putin, woven into the tumultuous saga of Russia over the last sixty years....

The renowned fantasy and science fiction writer China Mieville has long been inspired by the ideals of the Russian Revolution....

Journalist Owen Matthews dives deep into the war in Ukraine—from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol....

A powerful, fascinating, and groundbreaking history of Checkpoint Charlie, the famous military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the US confronted the USSR during the Cold War....

The Man Without a Face is the chilling account of how a low-level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the Russian presidency and, in an astonishingly short time, destroyed years of progress and made his country once more a threat to its own people and to the world....

CNN’s chief national security correspondent reveals the invisible fronts of 21st-century warfare and identifies the ongoing battles being waged - often without the public’s full knowledge - from disinformation campaigns to advanced satellite weaponry....

The raging question in the world today is who is the real Vladimir Putin and what are his intentions....

Defense expert Seth Jones argues that the US is woefully unprepared for the future of global competition. While America has focused on building fighter jets, missiles, and conventional warfighting capabilities, its three principal rivals have increasingly adopted irregular warfare....

In the new Russia, even dictatorship is a reality show....

Dark Shadows is a compelling portrait of Kazakhstan, a country that is little known in the West....

According to the mainstream Western narrative, Vladimir Putin is an insatiable, Hitler-like expansionist who invaded Ukraine in an unprovoked land grab. That story is incorrect. In reality, the United States and NATO bear much of the responsibility for the Ukraine crisis....

A riveting, real-life thriller about 1983 - the year tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union nearly brought the world to the point of nuclear Armageddon. The year 1983 was an extremely dangerous one - more dangerous than 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis....

A brilliant investigative narrative: How six average Soviet men rose to the pinnacle of Russia's battered economy....

Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy....

"My Life in the Red Army" by Fred Virski offers a rare, firsthand account of a soldier's experiences within the Soviet military machine during a critical period of the 20th century. Through the lens of Virski's personal journey, the book sheds light on the inner workings, struggles, and day-to-day life of the Red Army from the perspective of an ordinary soldier.

Lenin's work and influence have often been written off as no longer relevant, and many today consider this to be so. Lenin has, they claim, had his day, even though he is still revered in China, the world's most populous country. However, Lenin, like his mentor Marx, has had a tendency to rise from apparent decline and oblivion to renewed force and influence.

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.

This book explores why there is a major war again in Europe. Putin's actions need to be understood if not forgiven. With the Ukraine conflict seen as a proxy war of NATO versus Russia, how likely is the fighting to spread?

In this timely and incisive book, Sergei Medvedev argues that Russia's war in Ukraine was not merely a whim of Putin's obsession: rather, it was the result of two decades of authoritarian degradation and post-imperial ressentiment, a culmination of Putin's regime and of Russia's entire imperial history.

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.

Over two decades have passed since the “Cold War” between the Soviet Union and the West ended. Many citizens of the former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact nations have embraced the opportunities which come with expanded civil liberties and economic growth, but extremists exploit nostalgia for the days of empire. In the words of Vladimir Putin, “the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.” A new ideology—Eurasianism—is being advanced by those who dream of a new empire and revenge on the Western powers which brought about the collapse of the...

Dubbed by many pundits as “The Most Stupid War in the World,” the Ukraine conflict is one that hardly anyone saw coming back in 2010. However, it is close to a decade old already. In this conflict in the evenly divided Ukraine, brinkmanship by the local players in the country, by the West that wants to drag Ukraine into its orbit, and by Russia that fears losing Ukraine and its security in the process, is the norm. At the same time, the world watches in a seemingly helpless manner as Ukraine gets torn apart at the seams. Most of the governments in the West blame Russia for instigating ...

There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being the real thing, the true inheritor of a legacy, the upholder of the identity others strive to be attached to. In this account, we see two narratives that oppose one another, but that ought to complement each other. How do a people so divided by history embrace their common heritage or denominator as the children of Kievan Rus, but who later became known as the frontier people (Ukrainians)? "The Real Ukrainians" is the first part of an account that would take us hand-in-hand through our journey that would make us enlightened regarding the ...

In this brave and chilling account of the post-Soviet space, the author provides us with a fascinating insight into Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the other republics of the Soviet Union through the larger-than-life character of Boris Petrenkov who leads us by the hand through his world, his mind, and the characters he interacts with. This smooth and fascinating ride into a part of the world that people find mysterious comes with explosive revelations that take us through history from the times of Kievan Rus a millennia ago, to the Golden Horde of the Mongols, czarist Russia, the Soviet ...