History of other geographical groupings Books

Book SynopsisWith chronological chapters featuring emblematic Arctic explorers - including Elisha Kent Kane, Charles Hall, and Robert Peary - this title reveals why the North Pole, a region so geographically removed from Americans, became an iconic destination for discovery.

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Book SynopsisDrawing on his own experience, rich archival material, and a keen sense of history and politics, Mikhail Gorbachev speaks his mind on a range of subjects concerning Russia's past, present, and future place in the world. Here is Gorbachev on the October Revolution, the Cold War, and key figures such as Lenin, Stalin, and Yeltsin.Trade ReviewImportant. * Pennsylvania Literary Journal *Table of ContentsForeword to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition, by William TaubmanPart I: The October Revolution: Its Sense and Significance1. A Blunder of History, Accident, or Necessity?2. Was Socialism Built in the Soviet Union?3. Let’s Not Oversimplify! A Balance Sheet of the Soviet Years4. October and the World5. One More Balance Sheet: Something Worth Thinking About6. October and Perestroika7. Does Socialism Have a Future?8. Summing UpPart II: The Union Could Have Been Preserved9. A Tragic Turn of Events10. Tbilisi . . . Baku . . . Vilnius11. Toward a New Union Treaty12. Referendum on the Union13. The Coup: A Stab in the Back—and the Intrigues of Yeltsin14. The Belovezh Accord: Dissolution of the USSR15. What Lies Ahead?Part III: The New Thinking: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow16. The Sources of the New Thinking17. The Very First Steps18. The Conception (1985–1991)19. Overcoming the Cold War20. The Transitional World Order21. The New Thinking in the Post-Confrontational World22. The Challenge of Globalization23. The Challenge of Diversity24. The Challenge of Global Problems25. The Challenge of Power Politics26. The Challenge of Democracy27. The Challenge of Universal Human Values28. The Beginning of History?Index

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Book SynopsisDrawing on his own experience, rich archival material, and a keen sense of history and politics, Mikhail Gorbachev speaks his mind on a range of subjects concerning Russia's past, present, and future place in the world. Here is Gorbachev on the October Revolution, the Cold War, and key figures such as Lenin, Stalin, and Yeltsin.Trade ReviewImportant. * Pennsylvania Literary Journal *Table of ContentsForeword to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition, by William TaubmanPart I: The October Revolution: Its Sense and Significance1. A Blunder of History, Accident, or Necessity?2. Was Socialism Built in the Soviet Union?3. Let’s Not Oversimplify! A Balance Sheet of the Soviet Years4. October and the World5. One More Balance Sheet: Something Worth Thinking About6. October and Perestroika7. Does Socialism Have a Future?8. Summing UpPart II: The Union Could Have Been Preserved9. A Tragic Turn of Events10. Tbilisi . . . Baku . . . Vilnius11. Toward a New Union Treaty12. Referendum on the Union13. The Coup: A Stab in the Back—and the Intrigues of Yeltsin14. The Belovezh Accord: Dissolution of the USSR15. What Lies Ahead?Part III: The New Thinking: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow16. The Sources of the New Thinking17. The Very First Steps18. The Conception (1985–1991)19. Overcoming the Cold War20. The Transitional World Order21. The New Thinking in the Post-Confrontational World22. The Challenge of Globalization23. The Challenge of Diversity24. The Challenge of Global Problems25. The Challenge of Power Politics26. The Challenge of Democracy27. The Challenge of Universal Human Values28. The Beginning of History?Index

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Book SynopsisTill Hilmar examines memories of the postsocialist transition in East Germany and the Czech Republic to offer new insights into the power of narratives about economic change.Trade ReviewIn this astute and captivating analysis of disruptive economic change, Hilmar moves persuasively beyond the ‘morality’ and ‘economy’ binary to draw a timely lesson: it’s in the very fabric of social relations, even our memory of them, that we pursue moral worth and economic deservingness. Read this gem of a book that, yes, deserves wide attention. -- Nina Bandelj, coeditor of Money Talks: Explaining How Money Really WorksWhat if memory were not only about war, exile, trauma, and genocide? Hilmar’s inspiring work sets a new and crucial agenda for memory studies by highlighting the importance of economic memories for understanding contemporary societies. Deserved makes a clarion call for putting socioeconomic perspectives back into the study of remembrance. -- Sarah Gensburger, coauthor of Beyond Memory: Can We Really Learn from the Past?Deserved is a fascinating journey into the turmoil of post-1989 transformation in Central Europe. On the basis of in-depth interviews, Hilmar reveals the moral grammar that surrounds the remembrance of economic ruptures and how the language of deservingness and inclusion makes up the fabric of society. -- Steffen Mau, Professor of Sociology, Humboldt University of BerlinDeserved is the first full-fledged theory of perception of economic justice in the field of memory studies. This book will resonate with the growing interest in economic aspects of social memory, and Hilmar’s concept of ‘moral deservingness’ will become a useful tool for studying perception of other instances of economic changes. -- Joanna Wawrzyniak, coeditor of Remembering the Neoliberal Turn: Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989The book is original, illuminating, and consistently insightful, and it shows a deep acquaintance with the literature on memory and social identity. As such Deserved is a highly valuable contribution to cultural sociology. * Understanding Society *A novel and conceptually rich take on the history and memory of the post-socialist transformations. * CEU Review of Books *Table of ContentsIntroduction1. Historical Trajectories2. Remembering Economic Change After 19893. Deserving and Undeserving Others4. The Social Experience of the Transformation PeriodEpilogue: How Right-Wing Populists Capture DeservingnessMethodological AppendixAcknowledgmentsCopyright AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTill Hilmar examines memories of the postsocialist transition in East Germany and the Czech Republic to offer new insights into the power of narratives about economic change.Trade ReviewIn this astute and captivating analysis of disruptive economic change, Hilmar moves persuasively beyond the ‘morality’ and ‘economy’ binary to draw a timely lesson: it’s in the very fabric of social relations, even our memory of them, that we pursue moral worth and economic deservingness. Read this gem of a book that, yes, deserves wide attention. -- Nina Bandelj, coeditor of Money Talks: Explaining How Money Really WorksWhat if memory were not only about war, exile, trauma, and genocide? Hilmar’s inspiring work sets a new and crucial agenda for memory studies by highlighting the importance of economic memories for understanding contemporary societies. Deserved makes a clarion call for putting socioeconomic perspectives back into the study of remembrance. -- Sarah Gensburger, coauthor of Beyond Memory: Can We Really Learn from the Past?Deserved is a fascinating journey into the turmoil of post-1989 transformation in Central Europe. On the basis of in-depth interviews, Hilmar reveals the moral grammar that surrounds the remembrance of economic ruptures and how the language of deservingness and inclusion makes up the fabric of society. -- Steffen Mau, Professor of Sociology, Humboldt University of BerlinDeserved is the first full-fledged theory of perception of economic justice in the field of memory studies. This book will resonate with the growing interest in economic aspects of social memory, and Hilmar’s concept of ‘moral deservingness’ will become a useful tool for studying perception of other instances of economic changes. -- Joanna Wawrzyniak, coeditor of Remembering the Neoliberal Turn: Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989The book is original, illuminating, and consistently insightful, and it shows a deep acquaintance with the literature on memory and social identity. As such Deserved is a highly valuable contribution to cultural sociology. * Understanding Society *A novel and conceptually rich take on the history and memory of the post-socialist transformations. * CEU Review of Books *Table of ContentsIntroduction1. Historical Trajectories2. Remembering Economic Change After 19893. Deserving and Undeserving Others4. The Social Experience of the Transformation PeriodEpilogue: How Right-Wing Populists Capture DeservingnessMethodological AppendixAcknowledgmentsCopyright AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisThis book examines the coexistence of crony capitalism and traditionally democratic institutions such as political competition and elections in Russia after the collapse of communism. Trade Review"Gulnaz Sharafutdinova explores the development of crony capitalism in Russia, based on the contrasting cases of Tatarstan and Nizhnii Novgorod. She argues that the corruption which accompanied the market transition seeped over into electoral politics, and was a major factor in undermining popular support for democratic institutions. This finding is a challenge to transition theory, which posits that democracy and capitalism work hand-in-hand. Few scholars have tackled the question of exactly how and why Russian democracy eroded as quickly as it sprang up. Sharafutdinova's book is an important contribution to that debate." —Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University“This is one of the most interesting and well argued books I have read recently on the question of democracy in Russia, and its bold thesis is likely to appeal well beyond students of Russia to the much larger number of readers (and students) interested in general questions of democratization and problems of corruption.” —Henry Hale, George Washington University"This well-argued and convincingly documented book will be of interest to scholars of Russian politics, and corruption more broadly, as well as to policymakers interested in getting an overview of the logic of the Yeltsin years and the Putin response." —Anna Grzymala-Busse, University of Michigan“Sharafutdinova’s research is a comprehensive examination of how crony capitalism influences the Russian landscape. The author summarizes the nature and origins of post-Communist crony capitalism through a comparison of two major cases—Nizhnii Novgorod and the Republic of Tatarstan. . . . Sharafutdinova provides a valuable comparative analysis on the subjects of corruption and democracy during the Boris Yeltsin and Putin eras.” —Choice“Sharafutdinova provides an elegant answer to the question of why Putin continues to command such popular support despite the regime’s pervasive corruptness . . . . Sharafutdinova’s study drives home the point that the 1990s were never as democratic as often claimed, and the international community needs to reconsider the link between a crony capitalism and democratic institutions if it hopes to encourage successful political liberalization in the future.” —The Russian Review“In her Political Consequences of Crony Capitalism, Sharafutdinova identifies a similar pattern at the regional level, whereby interests of cronies undermine the leadership’s policies . . . She reinvents the notion of cronyism and views it as a definitive in the nature of Russia capitalism.” —International Affairs“Gulnaz Sharafutdinova has written an excellent book on the political economy of post-Soviet Russia that will have implications for our understanding of many other countries, as well. . . . she argues that ‘crony capitalism’ undermines both democracy and governing capacity. The book defines crony capitalism, shows where it comes from, and investigates its political impact, based on case studies of two Russian regions, a statistical examination of 40 regions, a case study of Russia as a whole, and finally a comparison of several post-communist states.” —Political Science Quarterly“. . . a stimulating book. It forces the reader to reconsider western conceptions of elections, emphasizing how the context in which elections operate can make all the difference . . . the book should interest not only scholars seeking to better understand recent trends in Russian politics but also those interested in the comparative study of democratization and regime change.” —Slavic Review

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Book SynopsisOffers a new interpretation of the emergence of modern terrorism, arguing that it formed in the Russian literary imagination well before any shot was fired or bomb exploded. Lynn Ellen Patyk contends that the prototype for the terrorist was the Russian writer, whose seditious word was interpreted as a violent assault on autocratic authority.

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Book SynopsisA compelling, expansive history of the relationship between China and Russia, from the seventeenth century to the presentTrade Review“An extensively researched and often compelling account, from which we are free to draw conclusions of our own as to where this most consequential of relationships may be taking us.”—Christopher Harding, The Telegraph“Snow navigates this huge panorama with a fluency and a lightness of touch that makes his book a wonderfully readable guide.”—Denis Staunton, Irish Times“Snow’s command of the detail as well as the larger sweep of the political terrain is impressive. . . . An outstanding guide to both these protean powers.”—Rana Mitter, Literary Review“The author of this remarkable new book has mastered a daunting range of sources spanning several centuries . . . to produce a lively and engaging narrative of a dense and troubled relationship.”—Richard Overy, BBC History Magazine“A thoroughly researched account of this long dance between two nations.”—Francis Giles, Es Global“An ambitious and wide-ranging study that manages to tell a complex story lucidly, fully engaging the many factors that shaped the development of Sino-Russian relationships.”—Stephen Smith, author of Russia in Revolution“A comprehensive, thoroughly researched and fluently written account of the history of one of the most important but misunderstood relations in geopolitics. Russia and China share a vast border, and a history stretching back half a millennium. And yet, as Snow shows, beneath the language of partnership we hear today there lurk deep memories of conflict, suspicion, and at times visceral fear. An essential narrative account of a globally important issue.”—Kerry Brown, author of CEO China: The Rise of Xi Jinping“[The Chinese-Russian] relationship from its humble beginnings four centuries ago to the strategic partnership of today. Scholarly and richly detailed, it tells the story of a unique relationship across a vast cultural divide. Written by a rare scholar equally at ease in Russian and Chinese, China and Russia is certain to become an essential reference book.”—Franck Billé, coauthor of On the Edge: Life Along the Russia-China Border

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Perhaps that is Zhadan’s greatest achievement. Transforming Kharkiv into Mesopotamia, he renders it as a place of irrepressible life and inexhaustible love. And, in doing so, he urges us out and into the world, to be with and for each other. His Ukraine is a republic of love.”—Jacob Reynolds, Spiked“To say that Serhiy Zhadan is a great Ukrainian novelist of whom you might not have heard does not begin to cover it. Serhiy Zhadan is one of the most important creators of European culture at work today. His novels, poems, and songs touch millions. This loving translation is a chance to see Ukraine in terms other than the familiar, but more importantly a chance to allow prose to mend your mind.”—Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny“One of the most astounding novels to come out of modern Ukraine. Mesopotamia is seductive, twisted, brilliant, and fierce. It brings to mind our own fiction from a time when we still felt like we had something to fight for and a chance we could win.”—Gary Shteyngart, author of Little Failure and Absurdistan“Unlike Joyce’s Dublin, the cradle of Zhadan’s civilization is a place of refuge for young people fleeing hardscrabble lives in the provinces, and a hardscrabble home for natives buoyed by desire yet adrift amid the flotsam of a spent empire. The men and women in these comic and heartfelt pages endure the dynamic paralysis that comes over those who are all dressed up with nowhere to go. They aspire, struggle, fight, fail, drink, fuck, and then they fight some more. Amid the city’s detritus, they refuse to become part of it by continuing to love and dream. There is nothing marginal about them. They insist on being seen, heard, understood. They will charm and madden you. They will haunt your dreams, and you will never forget them.”—Askold Melnyczuk, author of House of Widows“To say that Serhiy Zhadan is a poet, a novelist, a rock star, a protester, a symbol of his country’s desire for freedom and change, is to say the truth—but what is truth? Zhadan is a literary master of enormous force. At times he combines the energy of Jack Kerouac and atmospheric spell of Isaac Babel, at other times he is a balladeer of his country’s struggle. ‘Such strange things have been happening to us,’ he writes, of the streets where ‘winters are not like winters / winters live under assumed names.’ In Mesopotamia’s nine stories and thirty poems we find ourselves in the newly independent Ukraine, stunned by its grit, its rough backbone—and its tenderness. What do we discover here? That ‘Light is shaped by darkness / and it’s all up to us.’ We also discover that Serhiy Zhadan is one of those rare things—almost impossible to find now in the West—a national bard, a chronicler. This is a book to live with.”—Ilya Kaminsky“Zhadan is the rock star of lyrical melancholy, and Mesopotamia is not just a book of short stories but a cosmos with Kharkiv-Babylon at its center. We meet its lovesick citizens at weddings and funerals; their visceral, fantastical lives unfold in the intensely prophetic atmosphere of the upcoming war.”— Valzhyna Mort, author of Factory of Tears “With tales at once earthy and phantasmagorical, sentimental and anarchic, Zhadan is an exhilarating chronicler of a new kind of borderlands.”—Sana Krasikov “Mesopotamia offers a sublime experience of taking you right to the middle of a very specific world, where you eat and drink and love and fight and die with the characters, until you notice that that world has transcended the time and place and became part of the eternal human story.”—Lara Vapnyar, author of Still Here: A Novel “Serhiy Zhadan’s dazzling novel—here fantastically well translated—evokes voices that get under our skin and take us into the rich inner life of people about whom we have long known nothing.”—Marci Shore, author of The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution “Mesopotamia finds poetry in the most unlikely places—in the bars, tower blocks, and concrete boulevards of a Ukrainian city. By turns funny, shocking, and touching, weaving between the lyrical and the grotesque, Zhadan’s stories provide a lesson in belonging.”—Uilleam Blacker, University College London “To know Dublin, read your Joyce, for Macondo, García Márquez, and for Mesopotamia, Serhiy Zhadan. Of course this Mesopotamia is not the Birthplace of Civilization (or is it?), it’s Kharkiv, the Ukrainian Center of Nothing, located smack-dab on the Russian border, which, in Zhadan’s brilliant vision, is smack-dab in the middle of life lived beyond the fullest because any second could be your last, creaming with joy, madness, war, orgasm, stupidity, and a blinding light that smells like the essence of human spirit. We need to learn from Ukraine. Zhadan is a masterful teacher. The use of poetry as Notes—so far as I know, this has never been done before and is positively Nabokovian. This book is world-class literature.”—Bob Holman, author of Sing This One Back To Me “Mesopotamia is a portrait of post-Soviet Ukraine’s lost generation, of people who came of age in the disorienting conditions of crumbling Soviet order and stagnating social transformation. Serhiy Zhadan gives voice to his generation from Ukraine’s eastern regions bordering Russia. These are the people who have been missing from contemporary literature, whether in Ukrainian or in any other language. To understand the background to the crisis in this region, which has had such a major impact on the world recently, perhaps no other writer can provide insights as powerful as Zhadan.”—Vitaly Chernetsky, University of Kansas “Serhiy Zhadan has written a love song to contemporary Eastern Ukraine—vices, passions, and ghosts included. His Kharkiv is filled with gritty stairwells, red nightgowns, raw love, and a bit of magic. Costigan-Humes and Wheeler have brought Zhadan’s evocative prose to life for the English reader.”—Amelia Glaser, University of California, San Diego

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Book SynopsisThe essential history of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) during the Nixon AdministrationTrade Review“Competitive Arms Control is a landmark reinterpretation of U.S. strategic arms limitation policy. Explaining the multifaceted motivations behind the Nixon administration’s approach to SALT I, Maurer’s book holds important lessons for today’s decisionmakers.”—James Jerome John Cameron, author of The Double Game: The Demise of America’s First Missile Defense System and the Rise of Strategic Arms Limitation“An outstanding history that presents a powerful, convincing argument about competitive arms control. Maurer upends the conventional wisdom surrounding nuclear weapons, arms races, and strategic stability during the Cold War. A must-read!”—Francis Gavin, The Johns Hopkins University

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Book SynopsisAn essential exploration of how Russian ideas about the United States shaped architecture and urban design from the czarist era to the fall of the U.S.S.R.Trade Review“The book isn’t argumentative or polemical so much as illuminating, a collection of extraordinary anecdotes, objects and ephemera. . . . The illustrations, some of which are assembled into photo-essays between chapters, are stories in themselves.”—Owen Hatherley, London Review of Books“A fascinating history of reflections and distortions that traces the image of Russia and that of modernity itself.”—Arquitectura VivaNamed One of the Most Beautiful Swiss Books 2020, sponsored by the Swiss Culture Awards Federal Office of CultureWinner of the SAH Exhibition Catalogue Award, sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians

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Book SynopsisA bottom-up exploration of contemporary Russian politics that sheds new light on Putin’s grip on power—updated to include the Russian invasion of UkraineTrade Review“Putin v the People wrestles with perhaps the central conundrum of contemporary Russia: the endurance of support for Putin amid deepening disillusionment with the present and pessimism about the future.”—Daniel Beer, The Guardian“This work is well researched and well written and provides not only information on Putin’s life and career, but extremely informative about how he attained his current popularity and status in Russia, and how he maintains it.”—Ayse Dietrich, International Journal of Russian Studies“[A] very readable book.”—Martin Dewhirst, The Forum“The book contains much interesting detail”—Bill Bowring, SCRSS Digest“Greene and Robertson provide a valuable insight into the potential longevity of Putin’s power.”—Yana Gorokhovskaia, Europe-Asia StudiesReceived an Honorable Mention from Davis Center Book Prize, sponsored by The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies “Groundbreaking research presented in a fresh and accessible style—this book, centering on the positive social and emotional responses of the Russian people to their autocratic political leadership, is a thought-provoking challenge to the clichés and stereotypes surrounding Vladimir Putin.”—Edward Lucas, author of The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West“This engagingly written book concentrates on ordinary Russians, meticulously tracking their reactions to a complex but fragile regime where opposition is significant if limited, and Putin and his people are surprisingly dependent on each other”—Sir Rodric Braithwaite, author and British Ambassador in Moscow 1988-92“Challenging many conventional assumptions about contemporary Russian society, this fresh, original analysis offers paradoxically an explanation for why Putin is popular—but also why his position is fragile.”—Michael McFaul, Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Former US Ambassador to Russia“A deep dive into the complexities of Russian society, Putin's popularity and the protest movement that rocked the Kremlin.”—Arkady Ostrovsky, author of The Invention of Russia

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Book SynopsisThis is the third in a series of volumes detailing the history of Soviet foreign policy from the Great Depression to the Great Patriotic War. It covers Soviet policy in the Far East from the Japanese rejection of a non-aggression pact in January 1933 to the conclusion of a neutrality pact in April 1941.Table of ContentsPreface - Negotiation from Weakness to Negotiation from Strength, 1933-34 - Deterrence and Attempted Detente, 1934-36 - The Chinese Communist Party and the Comintern - The Sino-Japanese War and Soviet Aid to China, 1937 - Frontier Fighting: Lake Khasan and Khalkhin Gol, 1938-39 - The Tables are Turned: Japan Appeases Russia, 1939-41 - Conclusion - Index

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Book SynopsisFollowing on from the success of A N. Wilson's THE VICTORIANS, Roy Hattersley's major new appraisal of Edwardian Britain is his finest book to dateTrade ReviewInformative and always easy to read . . . Hattersley has done a fine job * Andrew Lycett, SUNDAY TIMES *Well written and wide ranging book . . . his account of the period is consistently enjoyable * Piers Brendon, DAILY TELEGRAPH *Hattersley makes a riveting case . . . a bold, sweeping synthesis . . . full of gleaming nuggets and offbeat points redolent of hours hunched over neglected papers. It is no surprise to readers of his journalism that it is superbly written, gleefully but wryly highlighting the absurdities and pomposities of the age . . . Hattersley's prose flows smooth as the port at a Sandringham shooting party. What makes this book is not just the quality of its social and political analysis, but the breadth of detail and the quality of its gossipy anecdotes * Colin Donald, HERALD *[A] solid book . . . Hattersley writes entertainingly . . . He is a clear and vigorous writer * Anne Chisholm, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *

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Book SynopsisCalled an uneasy peace, the twenty years between the wars were a time of turmoil - Britain saw a general strike and the worst economic crisis in its history, armed rebellion in Ireland and open revolt in India, a Prime Minister''s resignation and the King''s abdication. Crisis followed crisis until Britain was engulfed in the Second World War - a catastrophe that could have been foreseen, possibly even prevented. But there were also moments of triumph: England regained the Ashes and Britain ran to glory in the ''Chariots of Fire'' Olympic Games; the BBC was born and became the envy of the free world; there was a renaissance in poetry, sculpture of genius, and cinema lightened the darkness for millions. However it is the politicians who failed who have really come to personify the interwar years - in particular Ramsey MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin. Both prime ministers were better men than history allows. And Winston Churchill? Right or wrong, success or failure, he is the irrepressibTrade Review** 'Interesting, thoughtful, well-written . . . Hattersley's description of the real meaning of poverty in the 30s is masterly * GUARDIAN *** 'Hattersley brings freshness and clarity to his account of the 1920s and 1930s * HERALD *** 'Beautifully written and wonderfully readable * SUNDAY TRIBUNE *** 'Hattersley is excellent at depicting the social and cultural aspects of Britain between the war s' EXPRESS * ** 'A vigorous, well-paced account of two turbulent decades for Britain and her people. Hattersley's Hatterisms . . . Inject an entertaining, even ribald note into an otherwise grim story’ *

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Book SynopsisCOROMANDEL. A name which has been long applied by Europeans to the Northern Tamil Country, or (more comprehensively) to the eastern coast of the Peninsula of India.This is the India highly acclaimed historian Charles Allen visits in this fascinating book. Coromandel journeys south, exploring the less well known, often neglected and very different history and identity of the pre-Aryan Dravidian south. During Allen''s exploration of the Indian south he meets local historians, gurus and politicians and with their help uncovers some extraordinary stories about the past. His sweeping narrative takes in the archaeology, religion, linguistics and anthropology of the region - and how these have influenced contemporary politics. Known for his vivid storytelling, for decades Allen has travelled the length and breadth of India, revealing the spirit of the sub-continent through its history and people. In Coromandel, he moves through modern-day India, discovering as much about the present as he does about the past.Trade ReviewCoromandel is lively and its stories well chosen * The Economist *An engaging and meaningful account of a very long and complex history * Times Literary Supplement *A writer whom India as well as Britain should be proud to call its own, this account is seductive and convincing * Literary Review *

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Book SynopsisA remarkable true story of adventure, betrayal and survival set in one of the world’s most inhospitable places.Trade Review"Unravels the strange story of one of the world's greatest discoveries that never was." -- National Geographic"Polar historians will be grateful to have the Crocker Land expedition properly documented." -- The New York Times Book Review

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Book SynopsisMust be read by all our military people and anyone who wants to find out what really happened on the Falkland Islands. -James M. GavinTrade Review"Will probably endure as the standard history of the campaign." -- New York Times"Authoritative and very readable." -- Newsweek"Stirring, impressively detailed." -- Time

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Book SynopsisViktor Suvorov is a Soviet army officer who has defected to the West. Here is the full story of the Spetsnaz forces, the Soviet army's secret killer elite.

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Book SynopsisA remarkable true story of adventure, betrayal and survival set in one of the world's most inhospitable places.Trade Review"Unravels the strange story of one of the world's greatest discoveries that never was." -- National Geographic"Polar historians will be grateful to have the Crocker Land expedition properly documented." -- . - The New York Times Book Review"The true story of the Crocker Land Expedition to find a new continent northwest of Greenland in the early 20th century." -- What We're Reading - The Independent

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Book Synopsis“Extraordinary... seamless... astonishingly rich” (Sverker Sörlin, Nature)—an eye-opening environmental history of the Far North.Trade Review"In Floating Coast, Bathsheba Demouth has written a brilliant hybrid book about one of the most fragile and forgotten of Anthropocene front-line territories, the Bering Strait. Uniting ecology, anthropology, reportage and more, this is a superb work of environmental history, often reminiscent to me of Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams in its combination of rigorous research, intense looking and listening, and its clear ethical vision." -- Robert Macfarlane"... Demuth has now herself written the history she calls for. Floating Coast is a historian’s Moby Dick, a great white whale of a book that spans centuries and links landscapes, living beings, and the flux of time, into a marvelously readable narrative." -- Amitav Ghosh"Floating Coast is an extraordinary piece of history writing, seamlessly weaving together disparate elements. It is astonishingly rich in ethnographic detail, ecological precision, economic circumstance and historical texture." -- Nature"Demuth, an environmental historian at Brown University, has reaped rich and fascinating material from the oral history of the indigenous Beringians recorded by ethnographers." -- Literary Review"Floating Coast is rich, well researched and illuminating. It keeps under readers’ feet the vastness of Demuth’s expertise, as solid as a land bridge." -- The International New York Times

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Book SynopsisA ground-breaking exploration of the relationship between humans and the natural world where two great economic ideologies converge.Trade Review"In Floating Coast, Bathsheba Demouth has written a brilliant hybrid book about one of the most fragile and forgotten of Anthropocene front-line territories, the Bering Strait. Uniting ecology, anthropology, reportage and more, this is a superb work of environmental history, often reminiscent to me of Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams in its combination of rigorous research, intense looking and listening, and its clear ethical vision." -- Robert Macfarlane"... Demuth has now herself written the history she calls for. Floating Coast is a historian’s Moby Dick, a great white whale of a book that spans centuries and links landscapes, living beings, and the flux of time, into a marvelously readable narrative." -- Amitav Ghosh"Floating Coast is an extraordinary piece of history writing, seamlessly weaving together disparate elements. It is astonishingly rich in ethnographic detail, ecological precision, economic circumstance and historical texture." -- Nature"Floating Coast is rich, well researched and illuminating. It keeps under readers’ feet the vastness of Demuth’s expertise, as solid as a land bridge." -- The International New York Times"Demuth, an environmental historian at Brown University, has reaped rich and fascinating material from the oral history of the indigenous Beringians recorded by ethnographers." -- Literary Review"I have also greatly enjoyed and learned from... Bathsheba Demuth’s Floating Coast: An Environmental History of The Bering Strait..." -- Robert Macfarlane, The Big Issue’s Books of the Year 2019 - The Big Issue

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Book SynopsisFinalist for the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction A chilling exposé of the international effort to minimize the health and environmental consequences of nuclear radiation in the wake of Chernobyl.Trade Review"A magisterial blend of historical research, investigative journalism and poetic reportage…. an awe-inspiring journey." -- Economist"In this explosive, exquisitely researched account, Brown draws on four years of fieldwork in Soviet and other archives—27 total, some previously unvisited—and in towns and farms in contaminated territories to provide a powerful story of the devastating health and environmental effects of radioactive fallout in areas outside the 30-kilometer Chernobyl Exclusion Zone… This sobering book should be read—and studied—by policymakers and citizens" -- Kirkus (starred review)"Kate Brown introduces new archival material to document the public-health crisis — creating a handbook for a 'postnuclear reality'…. Brown’s page-turner skillfully weaves an original narrative on the long-term medical effects of the Chernobyl disaster." -- Nature"With bountiful, devastating detail, Brown describes how doctors, scientists, and journalists—mainly in Ukraine and Belarus—went to great lengths and took substantial risks to collect information…. One of the most alarming—though also eerily beautiful—aspects of Brown’s book is her description of the way radioactive material moves through organisms, ecosystems, and human society…. Manual for Survival asks a larger question about how humans will coexist with the ever-increasing quantities of toxins and pollutants that we introduce into our air, water, and soil. Brown’s careful mapping of the path isotopes take is highly relevant." -- Sophie Pinkham - New York Review of Books"Brown’s in-depth research and clean, concise writing illuminate the reality behind decades of ‘half-truths and bald-faced lies.’ Readers will be fascinated by this provocative history of a deadly accident and its consequences" -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)"A remarkable book, distinguished by formidable archival history, investigative research, and vivid storytelling. Parts of it grip with the force of a thriller—but again and again, the plot is proved true. A decade’s work has gone into uncovering the real human cost of Chernobyl. Yet this is a book about even bigger subjects than the disaster at its core: about how politics processes disaster, about the unseen legacies of the ‘friendly atom,’ and about the Anthropocene futures faced by the human species, surviving in an epoch of ruin." -- Robert Macfarlane, author of The Old Ways"Kate Brown presents a convincing challenge to the official narrative of the Chernobyl disaster. Deeply reported and elegantly written, Manual for Survival is chilling." -- Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction"Combining the skills of a historian, investigative reporter, and detective, Kate Brown has blown the lid off the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and decades of official efforts to suppress its grim truths. Disturbing in its conclusions, destined to incite controversy, Manual for Survival is first-rate historical sleuthing." -- J. R. McNeill, coauthor of The Great Acceleration"Gripping…Kate Brown’s relentless, tenacious reporting shows that Chernobyl isn’t the past at all. Nothing, she makes clear, can stop its radiation from seeping through all attempts to bury the truth for a long time to come. This deftly written, impassioned, courageous book should make the world think twice about what’s at stake when we unleash nuclear reactions." -- Alan Weisman, author, The World Without Us and Countdown"[A] humane and strange book about the irreversible things a technological disaster does to people and landscapes." -- Owen Hatherley - New Statesman"This engagingly written book reads like a cold war thriller and uncovers the devastating effects of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters." -- Alison MacFarlane, director, Institute for International Science and Technology Policy, George Washington University

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Book SynopsisThe extraordinary true story of Polish-Jewish child refugees who escaped the Nazis and found refuge in Iran.Trade Review"... a highly personal, journalistic memoir and a valuable addition to Holocaust history... What makes Dekel’s study so valuable is not just its assiduous detailing of one family’s fate during the second world war, but how it also makes us reflect on our current era, with its mass migrations of desperate people fleeing conflict and hardship only to meet inflamed nativism and the desire to shift responsibility for their fate from one country on to the next." -- The Guardian"Tehran Children is the story of Dekel’s quest to understand where her father came from […] that speaks to the terrors of the twenty-first century." -- Times Literary Supplement"The story at the center of this book is the way contingency shaped so many destinies. It makes these Tehran children not simply another detail of the Holocaust but a matter of enduring existential, psychological and moral reflection." -- Jonathan Brent - The New York Times Book Review"... intriguing story…" -- The International New York Times"Groundbreaking... The strength of Dekel’s book is that it moves beyond the narrative binary of “warm hospitality” and “abuse” to show the grey spaces in between... it is hope that lies at the center of this moving, heartbreaking testimony... hope that untold suffering can, and sometimes does, come to an end." -- Arash Azizi - Iran Wire"Part-history, part second-generation memoir, Tehran Children sheds light on a previously neglected episode of the Holocaust." -- Jerusalem Report"... compelling and personal narrative...This book is an important part of Holocaust history. A tragic story, full of sadness and suffering yet also hope." -- Methodist Recorder

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Book SynopsisAn entertaining and informative voyage through cultural fantasies of the North, from sea monsters and a mountain-sized magnet to racist mythmakingTrade Review" German historian of culture and science Bernd Brunner, in his book Extreme North, weaves a darker tapestry, layering legends over the science and history of the north to describe a place that is real, remote, inscrutable and cold." -- Josie Glausiusz - Nature"A collection of curiosities… There may not be a great deal of sunniness here, or for that matter warmth, but the book makes up for that with fascinating anecdotes, useful digressions and little nuggets of interest." -- James Lovegrove - Financial Times"Brunner’s own cabinet of curiosities offers both a delightful series of vignettes of the north, including Mary Wollstonecraft’s description of the perpetual summer light as the ‘noon of the night’, and a gallery of the preconceptions and agendas which successive visitors have carried with them...Brunner’s work is a dizzying tour of the ways in which successive ages have engaged with the idea of the north… More than anything, though, the book is a reminder that the north is both a place and a perspective." -- Philip Parker - Literary Review"In 31 chapters, each as self-contained and pointed as a shard of ice, Brunner presents a different historic, political, natural or cultural facet of his subject... Thought-provoking and wide-ranging, Extreme North resembles the 'cabinet of wonders' that he uses as the book’s embarkation point." -- Liesl Schillinger - The New York Times Book Review"Engaging… Those who seek out cultural histories to see the world through a strange new lens may particularly enjoy the section exploring how the North was misperceived in antiquity." -- Cal Flyn - Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisA long-awaited English translation of the groundbreaking oral history of women in World War II across Europe and Russia—from the winner of the Nobel Prize in LiteratureNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • The Guardian • NPR • The Economist • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel • Kirkus ReviewsFor more than three decades, Svetlana Alexievich has been the memory and conscience of the twentieth century. When the Swedish Academy awarded her the Nobel Prize, it cited her invention of “a new kind of literary genre,” describing her work as “a history of emotions . . . a history of the soul.” In The Unwomanly Face of War, Alexievich chronicles the experiences of the Soviet women who fought on the front lines, on the home front, and in the occupied territories. These women—more than a million in total—were nurses and doctors, pilots, tank drivers, machine-gunners, and snipers. They battled alongside men, and yet, after the victory, their efforts and sacrifices were forgotten. Alexievich traveled thousands of miles and visited more than a hundred towns to record these women’s stories. Together, this symphony of voices reveals a different aspect of the war—the everyday details of life in combat left out of the official histories. Translated by the renowned Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Unwomanly Face of War is a powerful and poignant account of the central conflict of the twentieth century, a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human side of war. THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.” “A landmark.”—Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century “An astonishing book, harrowing and life-affirming . . . It deserves the widest possible readership.”—Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train “Alexievich has gained probably the world’s deepest, most eloquent understanding of the post-Soviet condition. . . . [She] has consistently chronicled that which has been intentionally forgotten.”—Masha Gessen, National Book Award–winning author of The Future Is History

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Book Synopsis“A masterpiece” (The Guardian) from the Nobel Prize–winning writer, an oral history of children’s experiences in World War II across RussiaNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST For more than three decades, Svetlana Alexievich has been the memory and conscience of the twentieth century. When the Swedish Academy awarded her the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing “a new kind of literary genre,” describing her work as “a history of emotions . . . a history of the soul.”  Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style, Last Witnesses is Alexievich’s collection of the memories of those who were children during World War II. They had sometimes been soldiers as well as witnesses, and their generation grew up with the trauma of the war deeply embedded—a trauma that would change the course of the Russian nation.  Coll

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Book SynopsisThe first book to consider Soviet policy in this area from an historian's point of view. Horensma assesses the significance of historical precedents for polar sovereignty.Table of Contents1. Russian Policy in the Far North 1897-1917 2. Soviet Sovereignty in the Arctic and the Advent of Flying 1917-1932 3. The Stalinization of Arctic Exploration 4. In Stalin's Time 1932-1953 5. Arctic Policy in the Cold War 6. History in the Cold War 7. The Age of the Nuclear Submarine 8. Arctic Shipping since 1953 9. The Western Section: Winter Navigation 10. The Season of 1983 11. Arctic Studies since 1953 Conclusion Literature

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Book SynopsisPhilip Matyszak has a doctorate in Roman history from St John's College, Oxford. He is the author of many books on classical civilization, including Chronicle of the Roman Republic, The Enemies of Rome, The Sons of Caesar, Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day, Ancient Athens on Five Drachmas a Day, Lives of the Romans (with Joanne Berry) and Legionary.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A magisterial study." * Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies *"Roving Revolutionaries is a work of discovery and recovery solidly based on prodigious research and reading. Berberian whets one’s appetite for even more: a deeper exploration of the complexities of the revolutionary milieus in which these itinerant radicals found themselves; a more critical stance toward her actors; and a hard look at how their circuits, ideas, and activities contributed to the sad, tragic fates that both they personally and the people they hoped to save suffered." * Journal of Modern History *"A successful hit and highly recommended." * Connections *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration 1. Connected Revolutions: Local and Global Contexts 2. “Active and Moving Spirits of Disturbance”: Circulation of Men, Arms, and Print 3. The Circulation of Ideas and Ideologies: Constitutionalism and Federalism 4. Connected through and beyond Reading: Socialism across Imperial Frontiers 5. “The Egoism of the Cured Patient”: (In Lieu of a) Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A magisterial study." * Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies *"Roving Revolutionaries is a work of discovery and recovery solidly based on prodigious research and reading. Berberian whets one’s appetite for even more: a deeper exploration of the complexities of the revolutionary milieus in which these itinerant radicals found themselves; a more critical stance toward her actors; and a hard look at how their circuits, ideas, and activities contributed to the sad, tragic fates that both they personally and the people they hoped to save suffered." * Journal of Modern History *"A successful hit and highly recommended." * Connections *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration 1. Connected Revolutions: Local and Global Contexts 2. “Active and Moving Spirits of Disturbance”: Circulation of Men, Arms, and Print 3. The Circulation of Ideas and Ideologies: Constitutionalism and Federalism 4. Connected through and beyond Reading: Socialism across Imperial Frontiers 5. “The Egoism of the Cured Patient”: (In Lieu of a) Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis publication in three volumes originated in papers delivered at two conferences held in May 1988 at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington, DC. Like many other conferences organized that year in the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union, they were convened to commemorate the millennium of the acceptance of Christianity in Rus'. This collection of essays throws light on the enormous, truly unique role that the Christian tradition has played throughout the centuries in shaping the nations that spring from Kievan Rus'the Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians. Although these volumes devote greater attention to Russian culture, the investigation of the issue in the history of Christianity in Ukrainian and Belorussian cultures occupies an important and integral part of the project.Volume ISlavic Cultures in the Middle AgesEdited by Boris Gasparov and Olga Raevsky-HughesVolume IIRussian Culture in Modern TimesEdited by Robert P. Hughes and Irina PapernoVolume IIIRussian Literature in Modern TimesEdited by Boris Gasparov, Robert P. Hughes, Irina Paperno, and Olga Raevsky-HughesThis title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Brief, but enlightening. . . . Deeply appreciative of Russian cuisine . . . and the ability of Russian cooks to take whatever was available and turn it into something edible and memorable." * Food Politics *"Replete not only with life and enthusiasm, but also with a deep wellspring of knowledge. . . . A wonderful, rich and thought-provoking book." * The TLS *"This concise, information-dense, yet delightful book provides a window into the nature and history of Russian national cuisine. . . . Goldstein’s book…can be recommended to almost any reader." * Economic Botany *"A lyrical tribute to the author's decades-long relationship, both professional and personal, with Russian food. . . . If readers want to grasp the sensory and emotional importance of certain well-loved foods and dishes in Russia, they could do no better." * The Russian Review *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Introduction 1 The Land and Its Flavor 2 Hardship and Hunger 3 Hospitality and Excess Coda: Post-Soviet Russia Acknowledgments Suggestions for Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisCelebrated food scholar Darra Goldstein takes readers on a vivid tour of history and culture through Russian cuisine. The Kingdom of Rye unearths the foods and flavors of the Russian land. Preeminent food studies scholar Darra Goldstein offers readers a concise, engaging, and gorgeously crafted story of Russian cuisine and culture. This story demonstrates how national identity is revealed through foodand how people know who they are by what they eat together. The Kingdom of Rye examines the Russians' ingenuity in overcoming hunger, a difficult climate, and a history of political hardship while deciphering Russia's social structures from within. This is a domestic history of Russian food that serves up a deeper history, demonstrating that the wooden spoon is mightier than the scepter.

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Book SynopsisThe authors have brought together a collection of works from specialists in Pacific History from across Australia and throughout the Pacific. The individual contributions were specifically written to meet the needs of senior history courses in Australia.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; A note for teachers; Part I. Pre-European Pacific Society: 1. The origins of pacific peoples; 2. Pre-European societies in the Pacific Islands; Part II. European 'Discovery' of the Pacific: 3. European discovery or multiple discoveries; 4. Being discovered: perceptions and control of strangers; Part III. Islanders and Europeans in the Nineteenth Century: 5. Trade interaction; 6. Religious interaction; 7. Labour recruiting and indenture; 8. Response and change in polynesian societies; Part IV. From Colonialism to Independence: 9. Patterns of colonial rule; 10. The path to independence; 11. Non-colonial influences and issues; Part V. The Changing Image of the Pacific: 12. The changing image of the Pacific; Appendices; Index.

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Book SynopsisA luminous exploration of exile the people who have experienced it, and the places they inhabit from the award-winning travel writer and author of The Immeasurable World and The Moor. ''Breathtakingly good . . . Exiles is completely sui generis.''EDMUND DE WAAL''Atkins spins a marvellous tapestry of colourful tales, beautifully weaving history and travel accounts.''ANDREA WULF, author of The Invention of Nature''A volume for our times.''SARA WHEELER, THE SPECTATOR''A fascinating study of exile and its effects.''OBSERVERThis is the story of three unheralded nineteenth-century dissidents, whose lives were profoundly shaped by the winds of empire, nationalism and autocracy that continue to blow strongly today: Louise Michel, a leader of the radical socialist government known as the Paris Commune; Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo,

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Book SynopsisAn urgent call to arms from Time?s Person of the Year,the Ukrainian leader whose unwavering courage in the face of the Russian invasion has inspired the world and turned him overnight into a global beacon of democracyThe words of a man. The message of a people.Bringing together a new introduction by Volodymyr Zelensky with his most powerful war speeches, this book recounts Ukraine?s story through the words of its president.It is the story of a nation valiantly defending itself from Russian aggression. And it is the story of a people leading the world in the struggle for democracy.Above all, it is a battle cry for us all to stand up and fight for liberty. If not now, when?The only book officially authorized by President Zelensky, A Message from Ukraine includes speeches he has personally selected to tell the story of the Ukrainian people.

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