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  • A People’s Tragedy

  • By: Orlando Figes
  • Narrated by: Roger Davis
  • Length: 47 hrs and 1 min
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (613 ratings)

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A People’s Tragedy

By: Orlando Figes
Narrated by: Roger Davis
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Publisher's summary

Opening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, A People’s Tragedy follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then degenerates into violence and dictatorship.

Drawing on vast original research, Figes conveys above all the shocking experience of the revolution for those who lived it, while providing the clearest and most cogent account of how and why it unfolded.

Now including a new introduction that reflects on the revolution’s centennial legacy, A People’s Tragedy is a masterful and definitive record of one of the most important events in modern history.

©2018 Orlando Figes (P)2018 Audible, Ltd
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about A People’s Tragedy

Average customer ratings
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A Great Story

Gripping and well told, this is the story of how Bolshevism came to win out in Russia. The writing and narration are both superb.

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4 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent History of Russian Revolution

This is the second Figes book I’ve listened to and it was another excellent one. I didn’t like the narrator so much.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent detailed history

Everything you could possibly want to know about the revolution and the personalities involved. Aside from just the history, the author includes the cultural aspects as well as the effects and reactions of Russia’s great artists....Tolstoy, Gorky etc.

The only criticism I have is a small problem with the narrator. Overall he is very good but occasionally he trails off at the end of sentences to the point where it is almost inaudible.

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18 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Lesson in History

This book provides the facts I was missing to understand fully just how Lenin and his ilk managed to eliminate an equally inept and morally reprehensible monarchy. Also very well read. Hours well spent furthering my knowledge of the past as an armor against the flawed ideas and propaganda of the societal and political present. Thanks to the author and Audible for making this knowledge available.

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6 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic details about the Russian Revolution

The middle 25% of the book is a bit hard to get through because of all the political maneuvering coupled with lots of unfamiliar names and places(wish I had a map+ an organization chart for it haha). But it's totally worth getting through once the Red Terror part begins.

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Most Excellent

I believe that this book is the best possible treatise on the Russian Revolution. It was long, complex, clear, and balanced. Figes calls out both right-leaning and left-leaning historians for their past distortions and also admits when the record is not clear as to exactly what happened.

The one star off for performance is for some mispronounced Russian words.

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Very informative

I loved listening to this. I feel like I leaned a lot about Russian history. I definitely recommend it for anyone interested in history or politics

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Perfect

The vast complexities of an entire country and an entire culture are hard to organize and hard to explain. This book has answered so many questions for me. So many questions that I was never able to understand until now. The performance is perfect; and the organization of the book is perfect as well. It’s simply one of the best historical books I’ve ever read.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent.

Excellent history. Holistic. Beautiful writing. Fantastic narration. Shows the real affect of state terror & the dangers of social engineering on a national scale.

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Seems thorough

I'm no historian and I'm going to have to listen to this several times, I think, but my first listened was eye-opening.

I'd listened to other books on the Period, but this one filled in a lot of blanks. Most don't really talk about the Russian Civil War that followed WWI in such detail. I've always felt that other works short-changed this important event. Not this book.

Remarkably even-handed.

I really couldn't write much without doing damage to the excellent narrative of the book.

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