This is the best of a number of books that I have read that discuss the entire region - the writing style is accessible and the amount of information contained is quite comprehensive. Ten of my Hungarian, Slovak and Croatian friends who have borrowed my copy have pronounced it the best book on the region they had read in any language.

Since I am intensely interested in the subject of the American involvement in the intervention of North Russia just after the First World War (where the U.S. 339th Infantry fought against the 6th Red Army), I have a good many books on the subject, from "Fighting the Bolsheviki" to the more recent "Stillborn Crusade," and I have notes I made while researching original documents at the U.S. Library of Congress. But when I want to think in broader terms, I always pull out my copy of "The Decision to Intervene." It allows me to review the general situation at the time, including the activities of the Red Cross (who put the "Red" in the "Red Cross" Ha! Ha!), the U.S. troops in Siberia, and the Czechslovak situation at the time. I would be lost without this book. I highly recommend it!

the best book for the beginners and even for practicing crystallographers. i cant explain the worth of book in words, just buy and see your-self. if you are not satisfied, I guarantee you a refund apart from the publisher.

"Democracy from Scratch" explains, in theory and anecdote, why Russian politics were so confused around 1993. It is a special historical document -- and was quite an influence on me personally (in the form of a semester's worth of lectures) because Steven Fish was my senior thesis advisor.

Mr. Vogt is a wonderful source of knowledge when it comes to World War II history, especially when dealing with the Nazis. He taught a class at my university last year on the Holocaust and showed us all so many different facets of this terrible event than could ever be unearthed without serious research.

This work is useful in understanding how the eastern areas dealt with their territories at the conclusion of the war. Again what is made most abundantly clear is Mr. Vogt's lengthy academic research into this area. This work makes it easier for all of us to understand a specialized area of history that has been so far unjustly ignored.

N.F. Bugai (Bougai is unfortunately one of the many spelling errors in this work) is the foremost experts in the world on Stalin's deportations. Bugai has done more than any other individual to make the formerly hidden information on this subject available. He has used his access to the Soviet archives, particularly those of the NKVD (Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs) and MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) to great effect in this cause. This is Bugai's only work in English and it greatly resembles his Russian classic *L. Beria - I. Stalinu: "Soglasno vashemu ukazaniiu.." (Moscow: "AIRO XX", 1995). It is a very detailed collection of narratives dealing with the series of mass deportations conducted by the Soviet regime from the 1920s through the 1940s. Most of the chapters describe Stalin's wholesale deportation of a single nationality such as the Koreans, Kalmyks, Karachays, or Balkars. Each of these chapters provides a wealth of statistical and qualitative information on the conduct of the deportations and the conditions these nationalities experienced while exiled to Siberia and Central Asia. Unfortunately, unlike *Soglasno,* this work has no chapter on the Crimean Tatars. Nor does it extensively cover the Soviet Germans as *Soglasno* does. Instead it only has a brief chapter on the mobilization of ethnic Germans in the Soviet Far East into the labor army (forced labor brigades). The hundreds of thousands of Soviet Germans living outside the Far East sent to the labor army are not covered in this book. Neither are the more than 1.2 million Soviet Germans sent to special settlements. It does, however, include a whole chapter on the Ingrian Finns which is not found in *Soglasno.* The information in this chapter greatly enhanced my understanding of this particular operation. The information on the Finns in *Soglasno* is so fragmentary that it is easy to draw very different conclusions from the two works. The grammer and spelling are also quite poor. One suspects that the work was translated from Russian to English by somebody who is not a professional translator. The book does not identify any translator. Regardless of of this flaw, the book is one of the very few works of its kind in English. It provides much of the very detailed information recently discovered by Bugai in the Soviet archives. Even if you can read Russian, the information in this book not found in *Soglasno* makes it well worth owning for those interested in the subject.

this modern soviet poet breathes passion into everyday concsiousness.the dreams of the surreal possess his soul.the sound of the words read like much meaning.truely inspirational perception that will change how you see everything.wallace stevens meets william burroughs.borges.cortazar.you must have "xenia"&"desciption".what ive come to expect from sun & moon[press]...classics!perfect along side of bob dylan or w.c.williams in the coffeehouse style madness.leaves you craving more. radical.druid/gypsy/priestess.untill you are me & i am you

This book provides excellent coverage of recent developments in EU politics. The introduction is particularly worth reading as it gives a concise overview of the various schools of European studies - essential information for all those who do European studies and want to avoid falling into the trap of taking one author as knowing "the truth" about how the EU works.

In part 2 the political system of the EU is discussed in depth with references to recent changes and developments. Part 3 covers the main policy objectives of the Union (such as creating a European market or cohesion funds) while part 4 singles out important key issues (such as enlargement or European Monetary Union).

All in all this volume provides excellent and in-depth coverage of recent issues in the EU.

This study of one of the twentieth century's most respected and influential thinkers offers both a comprehensive overview of his work, and a valuable starting point for further inquiry into the burgeoning arena of Bakhtin Studies.

The narrator in this book is the fifteen-year-old Kostia, who is a rather wilful, righteous and intelligent youth, and would rather would be called 'Vladlen' (after Vladimir Lenin ...). He describes in detail everything that happens to him during the schoolyear of 1923 - 1924, and the least one can say is, that it is a very entertaining read indeed; a kind of communist middle thing between 'The diary of Adrian Mole' and 'A portrait of the artist as a young man'.

The book gives a very interesting description of the new Soviet school system, where the pupils have a great deal of influence on the school, and where it is quite alright to give the teachers constructive criticism (like, for instance, protesting when a teacher insists on calling them 'children', or assembling meetings in the middle of class, if it would seem to be needed). All this must have seemed shocking when the book was published in Europe in the 20's and 30's, but has widely become reality today. (A fact that tempts to add that it just shows how much good Communism also has done for us in the end!)

It is a fascinating depiction of early Soviet everyday life, with youngsters talking 'telegraph language' (the so widely spread usage of acronyms in the young Soviet Union, manifesting itself in expressions like 'fyskult', physical culture (sports); 'skryab', skolnyi rabotnik, school worker (teacher); 'politgramota', policheskaja gramota (political textbook), and so on), which they also apply to their teachers' names (like Almakfisch instead of Aleksei Maksimovych Fischer). Kostia also demonstrates ...

In any case, it is an extremely fascinating piece of reading. In particular, the overwhelmingly optimistic attitude of the whole story contributes to this. The 1920's were a time of sweeping changes in the Soviet Union, and many people experienced a feeling that they actually could do something to make the world a better place for everyone (and that is maybe something that, sadly and frustratingly, is a bit unusual amongst the westernised people of today).

The Soviet Union had an average human life span of 74 years. A life, whose periods showed (slightly scary) similarities with the periods of an average human life. And if the task is to describe the Union's teenage years - then what would be more suiting than the viewpoint of a teenage Soviet citizen?