{"product_id":"red-fortress-the-secret-heart-of-russias-history-9780141032351","title":"Red Fortress The Secret Heart of Russias History","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE WOLFSON PRIZE 2013\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHERALD \u003c\/i\u003eBOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe extraordinary story of the Kremlin - from prize-winning author and historian Catherine Merridale\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoth beautiful and profoundly menacing, the Kremlin has dominated Moscow for many centuries. Behind its great red walls and towers many of the most startling events in Russia''s history have been acted out. It is both a real place and an imaginative idea; a shorthand for a certain kind of secretive power, but also the heart of a specific Russian authenticity. Catherine Merridale''s exceptional book revels in both the drama of the Kremlin and its sheer unexpectedness: an impregnable fortress which has repeatedly been devastated, a symbol of all that is Russian substantially created by Italians. The many inhabitants of the Kremlin have continually reshaped it to accord with shifting ideological needs, with buildings conjured up or demolished to conform with the current ruler'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMagnificent ... [a] a superbly written book ... Merridale's idea was to use the Kremlin like a backdrop to an opera - a screen on which to project scenes from Russia's violent and dramatic history. That way she tells the fortress's story without lapsing into architectural didacticism or guidebook prose, and it works wonderfully -- George Walden * Telegraph *\u003cbr\u003eThis simply superb chronicle of the Kremlin is really a brilliant and unputdownable history of Russia itself from the early Tsars via Lenin and Stalin to Putin; anyone who wants to understand Russia today will not only learn a lot but will enjoy every page ... wonderful -- Simon Sebag Montefiore * Telegraph *\u003cbr\u003e[Merridale] combines impeccable scholarship with a deep feeling for the humanity of the people she writes about. Her style is accurate, spare, direct and warm-hearted, about as far from the academy as you can get ... [\u003ci\u003eRed Fortress\u003c\/i\u003e] is a brilliant meditation on Russian history and the myths with which the Russians have sought to console themselves -- Rodric Braithwaite * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eAddictively clever history ... Merridale whisks us through a series of terrific melodramas -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR *\u003cbr\u003eA zingy, razor-keen history of the Kremlin -- Ian Thomson * Spectator BOOKS OF THE YEAR *\u003cbr\u003eMerridale captures very well the suffocating atmosphere of those overheated corridors, where every room was bugged and mere proximity to power was often a death sentence ... she writes superbly. She has a gift for the tart insight ... and an eye for the telling anecdote -- Tony Brenton * The Times *\u003cbr\u003eExhilarating ... Both in its modernist sense of \"time in flux\" and in its style, \u003ci\u003eRed Fortress \u003c\/i\u003eis at the furthest possible remove from Soviet schoolroom sermons about \"the period of feudal atomization\" and the rise of the centralizing state ... This is a book of detail and imagination ... a neohistorical account of the Russian past ... \u003ci\u003eRed Fortress \u003c\/i\u003emade me remember the open-mouthed delight I took when, hardly old enough to know where Russia was, I studied the \u003ci\u003eémigré \u003c\/i\u003eartist Boris Artsybashev's elegant, aetiolated portraits of medieval Russian princes -- Catriona Kelly * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eRed Fortress \u003c\/i\u003eis a tour de force, as readable as it is extensively researched ... It never flags through nearly 10 centuries of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet history ... [Merridale] is both mythbuster and pilgrim, captivated by her subject even while turning an eye of scholarly detachment to it -- Virginia Rounding * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eOne of the best popular histories of Russia in any language * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eImmensely readable ... Merridale recounts [the Kremlin's] eventful history with great skill and tremendous narrative verve -- Ian Critchley * Sunday Times *\u003cbr\u003eMerridale is a historian by training, but she has a detective's nose and a novelist's way with words * Economist *\u003cbr\u003eAs with many important books, the reader will wonder why nothing like Catherine Merridale's work ... has been written before ... Merridale has succeeded in stripping off the veneer... She has the skills to get guardians of secret places talking and to negotiate access with Russian archivists, and thus penetrate the inner workings of the Kremlin. At the same time, she has a feeling for the site that brings dry archaeological and architectural facts to life: few writers can write the biography of a city or a citadel ... The Kremlin's history is likely to be frozen for decades to come. This unique and stunningly well-illustrated book is going to be a definitive study for just as long -- Donald Rayfield * Literary Review *\u003cbr\u003eCatherine Merridale's sparkling new book shows that it is people who dominate architecture * BBC History Magazine *\u003cbr\u003eAs usual, [Merridale's] engaging writing style combines a keen eye for detail with a human touch * Times Higher Education *\u003cbr\u003e[A] superb history of the Kremlin ... pages of lucid prose * Irish Times *\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Books Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48732400451927,"sku":"9780141032351","price":12.34,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780141032351.jpg?v=1719996716","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/red-fortress-the-secret-heart-of-russias-history-9780141032351","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}