Soviet Empire

On Christmas, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: Earlier that day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took center stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush's speech and has persisted for decades. As Serhii Plokhy reveals, the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the US.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times From the editor of The New Yorker: a riveting account of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which has become the standard book on the subject. Lenin’s Tomb combines the global vision of the best historical...

For more than 40 years, communism held eight European nations in its iron fist. Yet by the end of 1989, all of these nations had thrown off communism, declared independence, and embarked on the road to democracy.

From Akkad to the Soviet Union: 9 Empires That Forged Our World Ever wondered how a single nation can change the course of history? Step into a journey spanning over four thousand years and discover the rise and fall of some of the most influential countries the world has ever seen. This book goes beyond the dates and battles, exploring the brilliant innovations, defining struggles, and lasting legacies that shaped civilizations. You'll uncover the secrets behind their power and their ultimate decline, finding out: Why the Akkadian Empire's military and postal systems were revolutionary. ...

Stalin: The Architect of Fear and the Soviet Empire is a powerful and accessible biography tracing Joseph Stalin’s rise from his troubled Georgian childhood to his domination of the Soviet Union. It reveals how he built and ruled a vast empire through ideology, ambition, and relentless terror, shaping the lives of millions and redefining the course of the twentieth century. The book explores Stalin’s complex personality—his intelligence, paranoia, emotional hardness, and surprising moments of sentiment—while examining his relationships with Lenin, his rivals, and his own family. It ...

The twentieth century was nearly consumed by a seductive idea that promised heaven on earth but delivered the deadliest era in human history. From the frozen wastelands of the Siberian gulags to the killing fields of Cambodia, the attempt to forge a perfect society through force left a trail of one hundred million corpses. This book peels back the layers of propaganda to reveal the brutal machinery of the communist state, exposing a system that viewed human life as nothing more than raw material for a failed experiment. You will journey through the rise and fall of the Red Empire, examining...

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a superpower built on a foundation of absolute surveillance and ruthless control. At the center of this web stood the KGB, an organization that functioned not merely as an intelligence agency, but as the central nervous system of a totalitarian empire. This book tears away the veil of secrecy to reveal the bloody history of the sword and shield that protected the Communist Party for seven decades. From the theft of atomic secrets that ignited the Cold War to the penetration of the highest levels of British and American intelligence, the KGB’s ...

Western interpretations of the Cold War--both realist and neoconservative--have erred by exaggerating either the Kremlin's pragmatism or its aggressiveness, argues Vladislav Zubok. Explaining the interests, aspirations, illusions, fears, and misperceptions of the Kremlin leaders and Soviet elites, Zubok offers a Soviet perspective on the greatest standoff of the 20th century.

The Soviet Union is gone, but its ghostly traces remain, not least in the material vestiges left behind in its turbulent wake. What was it really like to live in the USSR? What did it look, feel, smell, and sound like? In The Soviet Century, Karl Schlögel, one of the world's leading historians of the Soviet Union, presents a spellbinding epic that brings to life the everyday world of a unique lost civilization. A museum of—and travel guide to—the Soviet past, The Soviet Century explores in evocative detail both the largest and smallest aspects of life in the USSR.

The riveting story of the ring of spies known as the Cambridge Five, who infiltrated the highest levels of the British establishment and helped Stalin cement a half century of Soviet domination over Eastern Europe The Cambridge Five was the most infamous spy ring in history. Its members—Kim...

In Three Days in Moscow, Baier explores the dramatic endgame of America’s long struggle with the Soviet Union and President Ronald Reagan’s central role in shaping the world we live in today. On May 31, 1988, Reagan stood on Russian soil and addressed a packed audience at Moscow State University, delivering a remarkable - yet now largely forgotten - speech that capped his first visit to the Soviet capital.

The first panoramic history of the Western world from the 1970s to the present day—from the Cold War to the 2008 financial crisis and wars in the Middle East—Empire of Democracy is “a superbly informed and riveting historical analysis of our contemporary era” (Charles S. Maier, Harvard...

A penetrating history of the year World War II became a global conflict and humankind confronted both destruction and deliverance on a planetary scale, “offering an intriguing perspective on a world at war” (Richard Overy, New York Times–bestselling author of Blood and Ruins) By the end of...

On paper, the Warsaw Pact was a defensive alliance, the Soviet Union's answer to NATO. In reality, it was a legal framework for an empire, designed not to defend its members, but to control them. This book tells the complete story of the Pact, from its revolutionary origins to its violent, modern-day epilogue. Trace the Red Army's "liberation" of Eastern Europe as it transitioned into a brutal occupation, with Moscow installing puppet regimes in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. Explore the early revolts, from the 1953 East German uprising to the full-scale 1956 Hungarian Revolution...

A powerful, unsparing new history of World War II, recasting the conflict as a brutal struggle for survival among declining and ascendant imperial powers In popular memory, the Second World War was an unalloyed victory for freedom over totalitarianism, marking the demise of the age of empires...

“Elegantly written and magisterially researched” (Robert Service, author of A History of Modern Russia), the definitive story behind the self-destruction of the autocratic Romanov dynasty, by the world’s foremost expert When Tsar Nicholas II fell from power in 1917, Imperial Russia faced a...

From a preeminent scholar of Eastern Europe and the prizewinning author of Chernobyl, the essential history of Russian imperialism. In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea and attempted to seize a portion of Ukraine -- only the latest iteration of a centuries-long effort to expand Russian boundaries...

The author of Free returns with an extraordinary inquiry into historical injustice, dignity, truth, and imagination. When Lea Ypi discovers a photo of her grandmother, Leman, honeymooning in the Alps in 1941 posted by a stranger on social media, she is faced with unsettling questions. Growing up...

Known as the Land of the Free, Thailand stands unique in Southeast Asia as the only nation to have escaped European colonization. This history tells the story of that remarkable survival, a journey of cunning diplomacy, painful sacrifice, and constant reinvention. It spans from the first Tai migrations to the founding of glittering ancient kingdoms. Beginning with the cultural golden age of Sukhothai, this book chronicles the rise of the cosmopolitan empire of Ayutthaya, a global trading hub for over 400 years. It details the kingdom's catastrophic fall to the Burmese in 1767, the ...

A gripping historical account of President Ronald Reagan’s battle to end the Cold War, adapted for young readers from the book by #1 bestselling author and Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier On May 31, 1988, President Ronald Reagan stood before a packed audience at Moscow State University. He...