Find Your Way Home--Bestselling Sat Navs
Plan ahead and avoid traffic jams with one of our bestselling sat navs from top brands including TomTom and Garmin. We also stock a great range of up-to-date and fully-routable maps for your device, including popular destinations such as France, Portugal, North America and Scotland.
| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Penguin Historical Atlas of Russia (Penguin Historical Atlases) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details
|
Product Description
Product Description
The breakup of the Soviet Union has been accompanied by a new surge of interest in this most fascinating and contradictory of nations. This atlas covers Russia's history from the coming of the Slavic peoples and the invasion of the Swedish Rus and the Mongols through the territorial expansion of Catherine the Great to the rise of communism, the Cold War era, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Full color.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
The best available historical atlas of Russia
26 Sep 2001
Format:Hardcover
I have been teaching the history of Russia at Cornel University for many years and have never found a completely satistfactory hisitorical atlas. Channon's work is defintely the best available. The maps are in color and deal with most of the main issues. A notable omission is a map showing the climatic zones which moulded the life of the Russian people.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
"A USA Today-styled" approach to Russian history
16 Sep 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The Penguin Historical Atlases are a great resource for those that are new to countries or perhaps are somewhat younger readers. In John Channon's version of Russian history, you'll find a concise, colorful and informative collection of articles spanning Russia's origins, the Tatars and establishment of imperial rule, through the Revolution, reforms and restructuring of the 20th Century. In a way it resembles something of a compilation of articles from a good illustrated encyclopedia.
The appeal of the volume is in it's size, illustrations and charts- I think of it as a kind of annotated "table of contents" to Russian history. It's a great resource to get the basic synopsis of a period, person or event that you can then take to a larger volume for greater detail. If you are looking for a great coffee table book or in depth Russian history, this isn't it.
As a neophyte to all things Russian, I found this to be the attractive appetizer that inspired me to really delve into Russian history and affairs.
While visiting a friend a few years ago in Siberia, he was struck by the readability, illustrations and usefulness of my copy-- yes, I brought it with me... He loved it so much, that I just had to leave it with him when I left. I now have purchased my second copy.
It's a great little introduction to Russia.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
I expected better of Penguin
8 Sep 2008
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Being interested in the historical expansion of Russia across Asia, I had high hopes for this book, since it was produced by the same publisher that gave us the excellent historical atlases of Europe and North America. However, unlike Colin McEvedy's invaluable works, I think this book was unfocused, convoluted and sloppy.
Where McEvedy's works were the epitome of conciseness, and could cover a half century's worth of continental-wide geopolitical change in a single page, this purported historical_atlas_of Russian history is crammed full of photos, cartoons, paintings and page after page of unnecessary text. Rejecting the brilliant simplicity of McEvedy's books, whose method was to generally show a snapshot of the political map in a single year, with accompanying text explaining the changes since the previous map, this book often shows hundreds of years worth of overlapping border changes on a single map, with different colored arrows- representing military campaigns- snaking their way through the resulting mishmash. The effect is often utter confusion.
Certain important subjects are given short shrift while comparatively insignificant areas receive inordinate attention. Russian expansion into Asia is dealt with by a single very, very bad map, and while the maps dealing with the expansion into the Caucuses and "the Stans" are ok, the explanatory text is unsatisfactorily cursory. Conversely, we are given much information on the location of various factories and industries within Russia, as well as maps of Moscow and the Sevastopol battlefield. The layout of the book is chronologically deranged as well. Can anyone explain to me why you would have a map of 1930s Europe, then have an entire chapter dealing with the history of the 20th century USSR until its dissolution, and_then_throw in a mere 2 maps on WWII? Similarly, why would you have a page with a map on the breakup of the USSR, and_then_finish the book with a chapter on Khrushchev's agricultural policies?? It just doesn't make sense.
You can learn from this book. It has some good maps and some good information. However, "some" is he operative word. Too much dross and too little editing spoiled what could have been a very useful work.
Where McEvedy's works were the epitome of conciseness, and could cover a half century's worth of continental-wide geopolitical change in a single page, this purported historical_atlas_of Russian history is crammed full of photos, cartoons, paintings and page after page of unnecessary text. Rejecting the brilliant simplicity of McEvedy's books, whose method was to generally show a snapshot of the political map in a single year, with accompanying text explaining the changes since the previous map, this book often shows hundreds of years worth of overlapping border changes on a single map, with different colored arrows- representing military campaigns- snaking their way through the resulting mishmash. The effect is often utter confusion.
Certain important subjects are given short shrift while comparatively insignificant areas receive inordinate attention. Russian expansion into Asia is dealt with by a single very, very bad map, and while the maps dealing with the expansion into the Caucuses and "the Stans" are ok, the explanatory text is unsatisfactorily cursory. Conversely, we are given much information on the location of various factories and industries within Russia, as well as maps of Moscow and the Sevastopol battlefield. The layout of the book is chronologically deranged as well. Can anyone explain to me why you would have a map of 1930s Europe, then have an entire chapter dealing with the history of the 20th century USSR until its dissolution, and_then_throw in a mere 2 maps on WWII? Similarly, why would you have a page with a map on the breakup of the USSR, and_then_finish the book with a chapter on Khrushchev's agricultural policies?? It just doesn't make sense.
You can learn from this book. It has some good maps and some good information. However, "some" is he operative word. Too much dross and too little editing spoiled what could have been a very useful work.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > History > Britain & Ireland > Ireland
- Books > History > Europe > Russia
- Books > History > Reference > Geographical History
- Books > History > World History
- Books > Science & Nature > Earth Sciences & Geography > Geography > Reference
- Books > Science & Nature > Earth Sciences & Geography > Reference
- Books > Science & Nature > History & Philosophy > Reference
- Books > Travel & Holiday > Atlases & Maps > Continents & Regions > Europe > Eastern
- Books > Travel & Holiday > Atlases & Maps > Countries A-Z > Russia
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
