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Product Description
Product Description
Geoffrey Hosking has been one of the foremost historians of Russia and her Empire for more than twenty years. He traces Russia's history from the settlement of Kiev through to the present day. He argues that two nation-building movements, one based on a messianic vision of Russia's destiny as God's people, the other a modernising and expansive imperial project of administration and assimilation, have clashed since the rise of Tsarism. These two nascent national identities offer a chance to compare & trace continuities in Tsarist and Soviet Russia & allow us to appreciate more fully the recurrent themes that have at times, and not least this century, appeared wholly without precedent in the history of the world.
About the Author
Geoffrey Hosking is Professor of Russian History at University College London. His previous books include the best-selling Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917 and History of the Soviet Union Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917 - 48,000 sales in the UK and Commonwealth.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
58 of 63 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you are looking for a concise history of russia, you cant go wrong with this book. I bought it as an introduction to Russia and Russian culture before i went to live in moscow for 6 months and found it to be a highly informative and entertaining work on what can appear to be an intimidating topic. You can't help but feel you're learning something new with every page turned, and personaly i found the subject fascinating. Even if you never intend to visit Russia, I feel this book is well worth a read for anyone with an interest in history as this sprawling country and its eventful past is so little-known to outsiders. A minor disappointment on my part, was the superficial coverage of individual characters and personalities bar the tsars and post revolution leaders (Rasputin for example gets barely a mention). This is not a critisism however, the books purpose is to give the reader a broad overview of 1000 years of history in 700-odd pages, which it does admirably.
Format:Paperback
This book was recommended by Orlando Figes and is well worth purchasing. It sets out clearly the complexities of Russian history form earliest times to 2001. I have found it easier to read than some other histories although a glossary of significant Russian words would be helpful but one can make one's own. A very good buy. Michael BaileyNatasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia
Format:Paperback
This is a comprehensive, stimulating history of Russia from its earliest foundation in Kievan Rus in the 9th Century up until the rise of Vladimir Putin at the end of the 20th Century.
The book is comprehensive and well organised. Major figures are given their due but we aren't just treated to a tedious chronology of regal succession but the contexts that gave rise to such defining figures as Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) and Peter I (or Peter the Great), Stalin and Gorbachev.
The one-star review that complains that there is insufficient attention to the lives of its rulers misses the point. Russia has not just been defined by its rulers. It has been defined by its geography, namely its wide open borders that have made stabilising and securing frontiers so difficult. It has been defined by its harsh ecology and short growing season, which has discouraged risk-taking and innovation but inspired strong communal values in the countryside, values at once intensely parochial but also providing the mulch for messianic political movements like Marxist-Leninism. And it has also been defined by its culture, especially the influence, for better or for worse, of the Orthodox Church. So for instance, 19th Century Russian intellectuals and Slavophiles romanticised the narod (people), seeing Russia as a shining example to the rest of the world, an emanation that owed much to the universal pretensions of Orthodox tradition. The continuities with the Bolsheviks' messianic ambitions can scarcely be overlooked. And, because Russia has been an empire as well as nation, it has also been defined by the people it has assimilated and conquered. These peoples - Poles, Finns, Georgians, Uzbeks, Chechens, and many others besides, are not ignored or overlooked in Hosking's account.
The one-star review is particularly unfair in its allegation of bias. This is categorically not the case. Hoskings has no particular sympathy for the communist project but he refrains from moralising and preaching, and examines its historical roots and development, tracing both its continuities and discontinuities with the past. The Bolsheviks thought that they could root out the past and refashion Russia in their image, to serve as an inspiration to the rest of humanity. At terrific cost, they succeeded in part, going further than would be reformers such as Peter the Great and Alexander II in refashioning Russia in the image they wished to see it made, but ultimately failed to transcend some fundamental realities. Central among these was the failure to build enduring institutions and transcend the old patronage networks that historically represented the actual nexus of power in Russia and its empire. The nomenklatura system was a communist epitome of this. Its paradoxical effect in Central Asia and the Caucasus was to reinforce, not weaken traditional kin-based systems.
Overall then, we get a luminous, concise but comprehensive history of Russia almost to the present day. I thoroughly recommend it for anyone with a serious interest in Russian history.
The book is comprehensive and well organised. Major figures are given their due but we aren't just treated to a tedious chronology of regal succession but the contexts that gave rise to such defining figures as Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) and Peter I (or Peter the Great), Stalin and Gorbachev.
The one-star review that complains that there is insufficient attention to the lives of its rulers misses the point. Russia has not just been defined by its rulers. It has been defined by its geography, namely its wide open borders that have made stabilising and securing frontiers so difficult. It has been defined by its harsh ecology and short growing season, which has discouraged risk-taking and innovation but inspired strong communal values in the countryside, values at once intensely parochial but also providing the mulch for messianic political movements like Marxist-Leninism. And it has also been defined by its culture, especially the influence, for better or for worse, of the Orthodox Church. So for instance, 19th Century Russian intellectuals and Slavophiles romanticised the narod (people), seeing Russia as a shining example to the rest of the world, an emanation that owed much to the universal pretensions of Orthodox tradition. The continuities with the Bolsheviks' messianic ambitions can scarcely be overlooked. And, because Russia has been an empire as well as nation, it has also been defined by the people it has assimilated and conquered. These peoples - Poles, Finns, Georgians, Uzbeks, Chechens, and many others besides, are not ignored or overlooked in Hosking's account.
The one-star review is particularly unfair in its allegation of bias. This is categorically not the case. Hoskings has no particular sympathy for the communist project but he refrains from moralising and preaching, and examines its historical roots and development, tracing both its continuities and discontinuities with the past. The Bolsheviks thought that they could root out the past and refashion Russia in their image, to serve as an inspiration to the rest of humanity. At terrific cost, they succeeded in part, going further than would be reformers such as Peter the Great and Alexander II in refashioning Russia in the image they wished to see it made, but ultimately failed to transcend some fundamental realities. Central among these was the failure to build enduring institutions and transcend the old patronage networks that historically represented the actual nexus of power in Russia and its empire. The nomenklatura system was a communist epitome of this. Its paradoxical effect in Central Asia and the Caucasus was to reinforce, not weaken traditional kin-based systems.
Overall then, we get a luminous, concise but comprehensive history of Russia almost to the present day. I thoroughly recommend it for anyone with a serious interest in Russian history.
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