Russia

Product Description 
This lucid account of Russian and Soviet history presents major trends and events from Kievan Rus’ to Vladimir Putin’s presidency in the twenty-first century. 
Directly addressing controversial topics, this book looks at issues such as the impact of the Mongol conquest, the paradoxes of Peter the Great, the “inevitability” of the 1917 Revolution, the Stalinist terror, and the Gorbachev reform effort. This new ninth edition has been updated to include a discussion of Russian participation in the War in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, Russia’s role in the Syrian civil war, the rise of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s confirmation as “president for life,” recent Russian relations with the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the European Union as well as contemporary social and cultural trends. Distinguished by its brevity and supplemented with substantially updated suggested readings that feature new scholarship on Russia and a thoroughly updated index, this essential text provides balanced coverage of all periods of Russian history and incorporates economic, social, and cultural developments as well as politics and foreign policy. 
Suitable for undergraduates as well as the general reader with an interest in Russia, this text is a concise, single volume on one of the world’s most significant lands. 
 About the Author 
Christopher J. Ward received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He teaches Russian and world history at Clayton State University in metropolitan Atlanta, USA, and is the author of Brezhnev’s Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism. 
The late John M. Thompson was a graduate of Columbia University’s Russian Institute and taught history at Indiana University, USA, for seventeen years. He was a distinguished visiting professor at the United States Air Force Academy and the Air War College.

Thompson, John M.

Ward, Christopher J.

Reference

Routledge

Product Description This lucid account of Russian and Soviet history presents major trends and events from Kievan Rus’ to Vladimir Putin’s presidency in the twenty-first century.Directly addressing controversial topics, this book looks at issues such as the impact of the Mongol conquest, the paradoxes of Peter the Great, the “inevitability” of the 1917 Revolution, the Stalinist terror, and the Gorbachev reform effort. This new ninth edition has been updated to include a discussion of Russian participation in the War in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, Russia’s role in the Syrian civil war, the rise of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s confirmation as “president for life,” recent Russian relations with the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the European Union as well as contemporary social and cultural trends. Distinguished by its brevity and supplemented with substantially updated suggested readings that feature new scholarship on Russia and a thoroughly updated index, this essential text provides balanced coverage of all periods of Russian history and incorporates economic, social, and cultural developments as well as politics and foreign policy.Suitable for undergraduates as well as the general reader with an interest in Russia, this text is a concise, single volume on one of the world’s most significant lands. About the Author Christopher J. Ward received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He teaches Russian and world history at Clayton State University in metropolitan Atlanta, USA, and is the author of Brezhnev’s Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism.The late John M. Thompson was a graduate of Columbia University’s Russian Institute and taught history at Indiana University, USA, for seventeen years. He was a distinguished visiting professor at the United States Air Force Academy and the Air War College.

This lucid account of Russian and Soviet history presents major trends and events from ancient Kievan Rus' to Vladimir Putin's presidency in the twenty-first century. Russia does not shy away from controversial topics, including the impact of the Mongol conquest, the paradoxes of Peter the Great, the "inevitability" of the 1917 Revolution, the Stalinist terror, and the Gorbachev reform effort. Tackling those topics and others, the new edition is updated to discuss the Russia-Georgia war of 2008, the 2013-2014 Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, the war in eastern Ukraine, and the Russian annexation of Crimea. Distinguished by its brevity and amply supplemented with useful images and suggested readings, this essential text provides balanced coverage of all periods of Russian history and incorporates economic, social, and cultural developments as well as politics and foreign policy.

Russia: A Historical Introduction from Kievan Rus' to the Present

History

THOMPSON, John

Europe

Westview Press

Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Russian and East European Studies, 233)

Heralded by Soviet propaganda as the “Path to the Future,” the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM) represented the hopes and dreams of Brezhnev and the Communist Party elite of the late Soviet era. Begun in 1974, and spanning approximately 2,000 miles after twenty-nine years of halting construction, the BAM project was intended to showcase the national unity, determination, skill, technology, and industrial might that Soviet socialism claimed to embody. More pragmatically, the Soviet leadership envisioned the BAM railway as a trade route to the Pacific, where markets for Soviet timber and petroleum would open up, and as an engine for the development of Siberia.
Despite these aspirations and the massive commitment of economic resources on its behalf, BAM proved to be a boondoggle-a symbol of late communism's dysfunctionality-and a cruel joke to many ordinary Soviet citizens. In reality, BAM was woefully bereft of quality materials and construction, and victimized by poor planning and an inferior workforce. Today, the railway is fully complete, but remains a symbol of the profligate spending and inefficiency that characterized the Brezhnev years.
In Brezhnev's Folly, Christopher J. Ward provides a groundbreaking social history of the BAM railway project. He examines the recruitment of hundreds of thousands of workers from the diverse republics of the USSR and other socialist countries, and his extensive archival research and interviews with numerous project workers provide an inside look at the daily life of the BAM workforce. We see firsthand the disorganization, empty promises, dire living and working conditions, environmental damage, and acts of crime, segregation, and discrimination that constituted daily life during the project's construction. Thus, perhaps, we also see the final irony of BAM: that the most lasting legacy of this misguided effort to build Soviet socialism is to shed historical light on the profound ills afflicting a society in terminal decline.

Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Russian and East European Studies)

Americas

University of Pittsburgh Press

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