Description
Book SynopsisWhen Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, he intended to capture Leningrad before turning on Moscow. Soviet resistance forced him to change tactics: with his forward troops only thirty kilometres from the city''s historic centre, he decided instead to starve it out. Using newly available diaries and government records, Anna Reid describes a city''s descent into hell - the breakdown of electricity and water supply; subzero temperatures; the consumption of pets, joiner''s glue and face cream; the dead left unburied where they fell - but also the extraordinary endurance, bravery and self-sacrifice, despite the cruelty and indifference of the Kremlin.
Trade ReviewA masterpiece of modern historical writing. With a clear, unsentimental eye and in calm prose, she describes the horrors of the most lethal siege in modern history ... A terrible story, superbly researched and beautifully told * Anthony Beevor, Daily Telegraph Books of the Year *
Magisterial * Orlando Figes, Daily Telegraph Books of the Year *
An admirable retelling of the extraordinary story of the 1941-44 siege ... The author has assembled the testimony of many unfamiliar witnesses, and vividly portrays what some of us consider the most dreadful saga of the Second World War * Max Hastings, The Times Books of the Year *
Impeccably researched, well-paced and beautifully written, Leningrad marks a new benchmark in the study of the subject and a more nuanced, objective interpretation for a new century * Financial Times *
A moving and breathtaking examination of the terrible price extorted by unfettered political power on both sides -- Sally Moris * Daily Mail *
