This book is required reading for anyone interested in the ex-East Germany. From the very beginning, Naimark shows how the Moscow Germans (Ulbricht, et al) were apologists for everything and anything the Soviets did to their conquered German "friends." This more than anything else painted the Communists and their "United Front" Party, the SED, as little more than stooges for the hated Russians. Thus, the GDR leadership had no legitimacy in the eyes of the average worker. Naimark's study also describes how complete Sovietization was in the arts and education, though he only peripherally describes the Lutheran Church's involvement in the social transformation being wrought. This is curious, since it was the Church that provided a haven for dissent in the future years, but Naimark clearly had to prioritize his subjects of focus. This is a "must-have" for anyone interested in the Cold War, the GDR and the Soviet Union.

This is a quite outstanding piece of research into a subject that was once all but closed off to scholars, thanks to East German and Soviet secrecy. The author seems familiar with all the available source material in German and Russian and as a result writes with complete authority. Among his conclusions are that even the East German Communists found it hard to accept some of the sheer brutality and bullying of the Soviet occupiers. At the same time, the Soviet authorities were not too impressed with the East German comrades' plans to accelerate the imposition of a Soviet-type political and economic system. Meanwhile, rape and rapacity on the part of the occupiers proceeded apace. A remarkable work that leaves a lasting impression.

Because history is written by the victors, one seldom hears of the plight of the vanquished. The author desribes the rape, plunder, murder, and indoctrination of ordinary Germans after WWII. by the Russians and their communist allies. This book documents the terror these people indured and how they survived.

This is an outstanding choice for anyone who wants to learn more about and understand the forces involved in Russia's autocratic Tsarist political system from 1825 to the Revolution of 1917.

The author masterfully blends history, political thought, biography, (and a dry sense of humor at times!) to a monumental task in examining the changes in Russia in the last 100 or so years prior to the Soviet era. (he covers some significant events in the reign of Alexander I) We see how Russia's expansion to Central Asia; the impact of the Crimean War; the economic modernizing problems resulting from serfdom; and the war with Japan in the early 20th Century shaped and influenced the thinking in the country.

Crankshaw is able to clearly deliniate the trends, and the significant events and people which made those trends possible. All in an easy to read and interesting style.

A fascinating and highly informative read!

Since the previous reviews have already established an able outline of the work's content I will only say that Crankshaw's masterpiece is a magnificent work of history and cuts to the heart of Russia under the Tsars, the Politburo and today's government.

As always, Crankshaw's prose is lucid, elegant and highly readable.

This book is a wonderful exposition of the reigns of the last tsars of Russia as well as the evolution of Russian society during that period, from a social and political view: Nicholas I, the oppressive ruler guided by a divine concept of sovereignty, smasher of the Decembrist rebellion and creator of the Third Section of Imperial Chancellery, the primitive political police; Alexander II, the reformist, the tsar who by an ukase in 1861 abolished servitude in Russia, and who, curiously, created the Okhrana, the security police on the basis of the Third Section and established it in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1881 the tsar was assassinated as the result of a terrorist plot, and the Okhrana could do nothing to prevent it; Alexander III, as hard and terrible as Nicholas I, gave almost illimitate powers to the police and to the Governor Generals of provinces and regions. Russia was driving to the abyss as the differences between upper and lower classes were increasing dangerously in a country ruled by an absolute despotism, almost feudal; Nicholas II, weak and short-sighted, followed by inertia the politics of his predecessor. From 1905 the regime was falling apart and disintegrating: the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the Bloody Sunday of 1905, the breaking out of the I World War in 1914, all these events mainly accelerated the dethroning and later execution of the last emperor of the Romanov dinasty, His Sacred Majesty the Tsar of All Russias.

The descriptions of the cavalry charges are wonderful and terrify'ing. I would have hated to be on the slashing side of those swords.

On the other hand the ablity of the South to repair the damage done by the raiders is remarkable. It made me realize the futility of distroying low grade rail and bridges. These guys would burn a bridge, and 3 days later it would be completely rebuilt. Not really slowing down the pace of the war at all. Sometimes the repairs were done before the raiders were back in camp!

It was incredible the amount of useless looting that went on. Soldiers stealing tableware & clothes only to toss it as soon as they were attacked.

Another great civil war read. (For those fans of wars in a bygone era.)

Thorough research and good writing make this an excellent work of history. My great-grandfather participated in some of these actions and kept a diary. Reading Evans' book cleared up a lot of misconceptions I had formed from reading only my relative's private's-eye view from horseback.

This book made the events that occurred come to life. I couldn't put it down.

Yesterday, 26 April, I wrote a review for you of this book under the above title, & I'm wondering if it is possible to add 2 words to the final sentence of that review. The final sentence said, "It breathes with life." What I'd like for it to say is, "It breathes with life and love." I hope it's possible to make this addition. Thanks!

First & most basically, this is a geography & history text, complete with dates, stats, maps, data, 329 footnotes & a 253-item biblio. But it is unlike any such book I've read. As the title says, it describes life on the land of central Siberia by focussing on the tiny village Djarkhan, representative of 250 such hamlets in the huge Republic of Sakha. Djarkhan is in "polar land," less than 300 miles south of the Arctic Circle (1200 miles north of Chicago!), with 8 or 9 months of what I can only call winter. How the people have managed to survive there since 1600, from pre-Czarist to post-Communist eras, is an enthralling, almost unbelievable, story. But the sub-text of the book tells another tale, of 3 Djarkhan natives -- a grandfather who was honored in distant Moscow as the Sakhala record-holder for hay cutting, a mother who was "the most famous plastic oral surgeon in Sakha," & a daughter who is the co-author of this book with her husband, a distinguished American geographer. Thus its 112 pages of text are enriched with 62 personal photographs, reminiscences by villagers & on-the-spot observations. It breathes with life.

I was lucky enough to have a chance to assist the authors in the manuscript typing for this book, getting to read it as I typed. Without any education in geography, this book was easy to understand, but educational at the same time. I have never enjoyed an academic book more than I enjoyed this one. The people and places in the book come to life as stories are told as only a native villager could tell them. A must read for anyone interested in cultural studies.

There are many books to be found on clandestine intelligence operations. Most of these focus on the organs of the US State Department, and corresponding agencies in other countries. This book is a rare gem in that it deals with military intelligence operations and techniques, and provides an extremely useful insight into operational procedures used by US military intelligence during and immediately after the Second World War. For this alone it is worth the purchase, but the authors also manage to amaze and intrigue along the way with tales of operations gone wrong as well as the flotsam and jetsom of post war Europe.

More than a history of arranging Soviet defectors to escape, this gives an intense perspective from time and age. It would make a wonderful screenplay for a Spielberg adoptation. As an American Jew I am proud to know that James Milano performed like Oskar Schindler when he learned firsthand of the German policy of extermination. The gripping chapter on the Mauthausen concentration camp describes Milano's feelings: "Now, after the war, the nightmare stories were proved true- and short of the truth." Milano's moto of making the damn decision after an intelligent manipulation of risk descibes why his operations were so successful. Because we know that Milano himself is the primary source, it fortifies the accuracy of the amazingly clandestine rat line. I highly commend this exciting book.

This is a first hand account of CIC operations in the cockpit of the Cold War-Austria. It is now little remembered that Austria was the only European country occupied by the Soviets to be evacuated during the Cold War. (Although in Asia, they did leave Iran and North Korea.)Both sides' focus was on the North German plain, the traditional invasion route between East and West, and vice versa. Not the southern route from the Adriatic through the Ukraine. Thus the major Allied intelligence effort was was in Germany. Most of the activities described herein are the usual tradecraft--doubling agents, honey traps, sneak and peek, etc. This would be just another tale and not of great importance, except for the Rat Line. This was a clandestine evacuation operation run for persons escaping from the Soviet-controlled areas. Because the occupation of Austria ended in 1955, and Austria was then neutralized, it was easier to run penetration and escape operations from there than through the hard border further north. Actually, there were more than one Rat Line. It is said that Martin Bormann, Adolf Eichman, and other top Nazis escaped via Italy. Be that at it may, Klaus Barbee did get out in a U.S. sponsored operation. But the U.S. Rat Line was more important for getting out persons of intelligence value, who once debriefed, had to be put under deep cover in a safe place. (Imagine a witness protection program, but with the whole USSR intellops looking for you, instead of a few mobsters.)This is probably the last first-hand account of CI field ops we will get of those days. After all, all of the vets are well over 70 and most were middle aged then. I also recommend Ib Melchior's book on his service as a CI agent. (cf)

Soltis and Mcfarland realized a great work. Soviet chess is an historical topic of absolute interest for chess players and not. Soltis keeps a good balance between historical/anecdotical facts and chess facts. the price is high but correct: hardcover, good paper, many photopgraphs.

GM Soltis has produced a fine work here, just like his biography of Frank Marshall, as well as his 70s book "The Younger Soviet School of Chess" (more than can be said for his opening books alas). He covers chess in the Soviet Union from the October Revolution to the Union's demise.

Soltis covers the inauspicious beginnings of Soviet chess, largely due to the whims of Krylenko, the much feared Soviet prosecutor. There were bad setbacks at first, particularly the defections of Alekhine and Bogolyubov, the outclassing of the leading Russians (albeit of a pre-revolonary generation) by the best Westerners at the great Moscow 1925 tournament (of course, apart from the soon-to-defect Bogolyubov), to the rise of Botvinnik to world class.

By the end of WW2, Soviet strength had grown enormously, but was almost unknown in the West. The West realized it soon enough with the Soviets' drubbing of the USA team, victors in the four previous Olympiad. Then Botvinnik convincingly captured the World Title, and the Soviets held it ever since apart from the three-year reign of Fischer.

Soltis also covers the horrors of Communist Russia, showing that even chessmasters were not immune from Stalin's paranoia. Even Krylenko met the fate he had handed out to so many others. The "Great Patriotic War" also took a terrible toll, including Iljin Genevsky, and Romanovsky's first wife and all their daughters. Soltis speculates on the effects of the Soviet oppression on the character of many of its grandmasters.

There is a good collection of lightly annotated games, many unknown but still high quality. At the end, there's even a guide to pronouncing Russian names, which may surprise many, but on the ones I've heard pronounced by native Russian speakers, Soltis provides an accurate guide as far as is possible with the Latin alphabet.

This book offers a fascinating historical account of chess in the Soviet Union. While it does contain lots of game scores with light annotations by the author, the book is more historical than instructional. The book gives a detailed account of the evolution of Soviet chess from the basement of a small house in Moscow just after the revolution, to a national fascination that would dominate the world scene. All throughout the book there is a strong emphasis on the connection between chess and politics in the USSR. A great read for history buffs.

I am fascinated by the Russian and former Soviet crewed space program; I love the Soyuz spacecraft and can remember being in France in the summer of 1975 when Apollo 18 and Soyuz 19 docked in space.
This book is the best of its kind that I have seen in English, and it is my sincere hope that Phillip Clark will write a revised and updated edition.
I hope to someday learn how to read Russian but in the meantime I think Mr. Clark's book is the best reference on this subject that I will be able to find.
It is also my sincere hope that the United States of America and the Russian Republic will go hand in hand to Mars; I am also glad for the International Space Station where Americans and Russians are learning to work together in preparation for the long and arduous journey to Mars.
I would even recommend this book to any layperson.

Gery Bedard

Hardcover book with almost 200 pages, great photos and drawingcomparable with those seen in Russian language books on this subject!The book covers all soyuz missions up to the first launches to the MIR space station! A must for each serious space flight enthusiast. An updated version would be welcome by the turn of the Millennium 2001 !

Although now out of print and seriously in need of a revised edition, this is the best history in English of the Soviet manned space program up to the late 1980's. It was published in 1988, just as the first of the glasnost revelations about the Soviet space program was coming out, but since then much new material has been released. Phillip Clark is a well-known analyst of the Soviet space program who is a consultant for the European aerospace industry, and his studies are highly regarded in the field. Overall, the histories of the Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz programs in this book are the best available in English (and I've read most of the ones that are available), and the history of the Salyut and early phases of the Mir programs are excellent. The coverage of the Soviet manned lunar N-1/L3 and L-1 (Zond) programs was good based on the very limited information available at the time (The Soviets did not formally admit to having a manned lunar landing program until after the book was published), but are now very outdated and are in error in some places, now that the Russians have released many formerly classified details about these programs. Overall, the book is fairly scholarly, but is also written for the general reader, which is in itself quite an accomplishment. It is profusely illustrated with photographs, many in color, diagrams, and details of the spacecraft and launch systems. Despite this book being seriously out of date, it still should be considered an essential book for any serious enthusiast of Soviet space history. One can only hope that the author revises this superb book to incorporate all the new information released by the Russians. Mr Clark, are you listening???

Anyone who has read literature knows the best and most noteworthy volumes. This is not necessarily because the work is 'well written' or conveys ideas easily to the reader, or because someone else says it's good. Good literature is the work that has a completely positive effect upon the reader. I have been reading serious literature for several years now, and A Sportsman's Notebook is quite possibly the most wonderful literary work I have yet encountered. If I'm feeling down, I crack it open, and by the time I'm done reading I feel better. If I'm feeling good, it makes me feel that much better. Turgenev's words ring true in this volume -- to me it's as sweet as candy.

This fine gem of a book typifies the sort of volume that one must be able to extract from the water-logged valise when the steamer has gone down and one finds oneself stranded on the proverbial desert island. After 30 years of rather serious reading, I still tend to think that Turgenev is one of the finest authors ever to put ink to paper. A Sportsman's Notebook is a wonderful place to start an exploration of Russian literature. Now, if I can just find my tramp steamer tickets.

This book has some of the best short fiction ever written. Hemingway said, "Tolstoy wrote the best books, BUT TURGENEV WAS THE GREATEST WRITER." And then he went on to praise the short story "A Rattle of Wheels" above all other Turgenev stories. So if Hemingway thought Turgenev the greatest writer, and "Rattle of Wheels" the greatest story he wrote, then he certainly thought "Rattle of Wheels" the greatest short story ever written (aside from his own works, of course, egomaniac that he was). And "Rattle of Wheels" is in this collection. I personally prefer "The Singers". Read this collection. You won't regret it.

Solomon Volkov is a sorcerer. He will have you chuckling out loud one minute & weeping the next! In the pages of this book, you will come to know the people of St. Petersburg; their glory, their sorrow, their passion, their genius. Volkov has brought this immortal city across the ocean and planted it firmly in my heart. It has instilled in me a deep appreciation for the talents of those who, in some cases, forfeited theirs lives for the sake of creative freedom.

Not only is the author obviously erudite about his subject matter, he is in love with it, making this book more than just an outsider's account of a city's cultural history. Exploring the 'mythos' of St. Petersburg through the work and lives of many of the creative spirits who either lived here or reflected the city in their works -- Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoyevski, Akhmatova among the better-known -- Volkov brings to life the very streets, houses, and canals of a great city on the border of Russia and Europe. But even more, his reader has the great pleasure of being accompanies on this journey by the very Russian-intellectual thoughtfulness and erudition, 'intelligentnost', of the author. Warmly recommended indeed.

Solomon Volkov has prepared for Western readers a breathtaking history of St. Petersburg's cultural treasures. Anyone who has seen "The Nutcracker Ballet" should read this book. Volkov brings forth the great ballet artists, classical music composers, painters, and writers who were centered in St. Petersburg, Russia's "window on Europe". Most of these great artists are as familiar to western readers as Tchaikovsky. But we are also introduced to equally great artists, poets, and writers we didn't know before. The introduction is invaluable. Underlying the "stars" of center stage, and running throughout the 300 years of cultural history is a constant reference to the "mythos of St. Petersburg" which Russian emigres worldwide will recognize with longing and affection. It is important to learn of the deeply-felt magical aura this city imposed on the artists and writers who lived there, including on Solomon Volkov himself.

I liked this book for the way Bunce is using Boolean algebra: a simple method but not widely used in Comparative Politics.

The book is really something. Why? Primarily for two reasons. First of all, there have been libraries of material written on the subject of the Socialist collapse, so the readers - new to the field as well as proficient scholars trying to find a good account of it within the boundaries of a book - find themselves somewhat lost in the jungle of different and presumably equally good accounts of the causes of the Socialist collapse. No more search for them now that we have the Bunce book. It covers the event concisely and to the point. The second reason is that it offers a unique and compelling explanation of the communist collapse as embedded in the system's design itself. That, of course, leaves a room for a debate whether the collapse was somewhat predetermined at the neginning, or it could have possibly been avoided. But if research can produce a debate, it is already potentially good, and hardly any book can conclusively identify all the causes of the collapse. This one, however, keeps the reader excited and the brain stimulating.

Among the multitude of books written on the issue of the Post-Socialist collapse, Subversive Institutions is a true masterpiece. It is very readable, and it can serve as a good introduction for a novice in the field, and as an excellent summary to an advanced scholar. Socialism did not collapse uniformly across the region. Bunce poses and answers three main questions: the nature of the collapse, the time of the collapse, and the reason for the collapse os state socialism. Why do some countries submerge into civil wars, while some disintegrated peacefully? To provide an answer to these and other questions, Bunce looks at the differences within the institutional arrangements, the institutional designs these countries developed during tne course state socialism. Undoubtedly, the book is one of the best ever written in the field of transitology.