Soviet Life

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.

Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world’s imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century.

Tom Rob Smith-the author whose debut, Child 44, has been called "brilliant" (Chicago Tribune), "remarkable" (Newsweek) and "sensational" (Entertainment Weekly)-returns with an intense, suspenseful new novel: a story where the sins of the past threaten to destroy the present, where families must...

Bloomsbury presents The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley, read by Jot Davies. From the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Kingdoms, an epic Cold War novel set in a mysterious town in Soviet Russia with a slow burn romance at its heart. In 1963, in a Siberian prison...

Imagine waking up every morning in a city with no name. You send letters to an address that doesn’t exist. You work on projects you’re not allowed to discuss. And you know that no matter what happens… You can never leave. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union built entire cities in complete secrecy—sealed off from the outside world, erased from maps, and hidden behind layers of military control. These were not temporary facilities or isolated compounds. They were fully functioning cities, home to thousands of people who lived, worked, raised families, and built their lives inside ...

Discover the life and legacy of Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet filmmaker who redefined cinema and revolutionized the art of storytelling through the power of montage. From his groundbreaking silent films like Strike and Battleship Potemkin to his ambitious epics Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, Eisenstein reshaped film into a medium of ideas, politics, and emotional intensity. This comprehensive guide explores his personal journey, his struggles with censorship, and his enduring influence on world cinema. In this complete account, readers will find detailed chapters on Eisenstein’s ...

A Nobel laureate presents a brilliant, discomfiting reflection on literary life defined by the brutality of Ceausescu’s Romania. From her childhood in Romania, in a village “as small as a thimble on the edge of the world,” through to life in exile in Germany, Herta Müller's story unspools...

The final heart-pounding novel in the sensational Child 44 trilogy, from bestselling author Tom Rob Smith. Leo Demidov is no longer a member of Moscow's secret police. But when his wife, Raisa, and daughters Zoya and Elena are invited on a "Peace Tour" to New York City, he is immediately...

Of the 30 million who fought in the eastern front of World War II, 8 million died, driven forward in suicidal charges, shattered by German shells and tanks. They were the men and women of the Red Army, a ragtag mass of soldiers who confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. Sixty years have passed since their epic triumph, but the heart and mind of Ivan - as the ordinary Russian soldier was called-remain a mystery. We know something about how the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought. 

A Chernobyl survivor and New York Times bestselling author delivers the definitive history of the worst nuclear accident in history. “The most comprehensive and convincing history of Chernobyl yet to appear in English.” ―Financial Times On the morning of April 26, 1986, a reactor at the...

A “memorable series of portraits of the working class people who defended Tiananmen Square” (The New York Review of Books) during the protests from the award-winning poet, dissident, and “one of the most original and remarkable Chinese writers of our time” (Philip Gourevitch). Much has...

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post and NPR “We come to see in FDR the magisterial, central figure in the greatest and richest political tapestry of our nation’s entire history” —Nigel Hamilton, Boston Globe “Meticulously researched and authoritative” —Douglas...

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...

In Stalin’s Russia, when prison sentences stretched ten, fifteen, and twenty-five years, the future Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn found himself incarcerated in its genocidal “corrective” labor camps (the so-called Gulag of the Soviet Union). His crime: expressing anti-Stalinist opinions in a letter to a friend. A devout Communist at his arrest, condemned to be worked to death in the frozen wastelands of Russia, he underwent instead a profound psychological transformation, broke free of his Marxist ideology—and survived. This full biography of one of the most influential ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An intimate and masterful biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski—President Carter’s national security advisor and one of America’s leading geopolitical thinkers—from one of the finest columnists and political writers at work today. Zbigniew Brzezinski was a key...

Bloomsbury presents The Afghans by Åsne Seierstad, read by Laila Pyne. A KIRKUS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "An astonishing feat of writing and reporting and one of the finest books written on Afghanistan in a generation." —Eliza Griswold, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Amity and Prosperity “A...

In These Lives, daily Cold War existence under the despotic dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, is vividly documented. Drawn against a chaotic background of hardships, horrors, and hilarity, story after story depicts every imaginable aspect of that era: from cold, brutal murders and betrayal, to the abiding love between a husband and wife. These stories flow from the memories of Romanian expatriate Eliade Moldovan, who grew up in that country in painful, troublesome times. Recounted from both his own experiences and those of family and friends, the tales within all have one thing in common:...

Flying combat missions in wartime is always dangerous. But imagine doing so in a slow, rickety biplane, at night, with no lights or navigational equipment of any kind. Sound impossible? It wasn't for the Soviet Night Witches. This unit of incredibly brave women flew hundreds of missions to attack German forces on the front lines during World War II. Learn all about these brave women and how their skill and courage in battle helped defeat the Nazis to win the war.

Departing from a simple linear history, The Soviet Century traces all the continuities and ruptures that led from the founding revolution of October 1917, to the final collapse of the late 1980s and early 1990s, passing through the Stalinist dictatorship, the impossible reforms of the Khrushchev years, and the glasnost and perestroika policies of Gorbachev.

On Christmas Eve, 2017, the life of Russian-American artist Nikita Nataniel Kuznetsov changes beyond recognition. He’s plagued with a deadly bacterial infection that sends him off to the afterlife. Before he can move on to the other side, he must stand trial that takes place in a concert hall, attended by an invisible audience. As he sits at his piano, he is compelled to watch a 3D movie of his life, allowing him to relive meaningful events: his miserable childhood at a boarding school in the USSR of the 70s, his rise to stardom, his run-ins with the KGB, and a fateful breakup from his ...