Weisel delved deep into the complex nature of humans and the human attempt to deal with society's constantly changing moral/ethical guides. I know I will be thinking about this book for a long time to come. Although the topic can be depressing, Weisel finds the beauty in the way his characters deal with the problems in front of them.

Janet Irons provides a comprehensive look at a shockingly neglected piece of US labor history: the 1934 general strike of southern textile workers. Irons convincingly shows that the impetus for the strike came from the workers, and that the leadership of the United Textile Workers of America was out of touch and committed to an outdated style of leadership from the top. One of the most fascinating areas Irons explores is the effects of mass communication, new hard-surfaced roads, and inexpensive autos in enabling Southern workers to innovate a new organizing technique: the flying squadron. Teams of strikers in cars and trucks went from mill to mill throughout the Piedmont to spread the walk-out. A minor drawback to the book is its failure to put the textile strike in a broader context. The fall of 1934 saw a general strike in San Francisco and labor unrest in Seattle, Minneapolis and other cities. Arguably, FDR's New Dealers had a lot more than the textile situation on their minds in this period. There is not doubt that Irons's book is an important contribution to an emerging, more nuanced view of southern workers and their alleged passivity.

It is a great pity to see this book out of print. In the early 1980s, before the imposition of martial law, Toranska interviewed five aged Polish politicians: Julia Minc, Roman Werfel, Edward Ochab, Stefan Staszewski and Jacob Berman.

Each had served in the leadership of the Stalinist "Polish People's Republic" between 1945 and 1956, and played some part in implementing the various Stalinist policies: propaganda and press control, agricultural collectivization, purges of the non-communist parties and the anti-Nazi Home Army, and dealings with Stalin and Khrushchev. One (Staszewski) has turned against communism; the others are unrepentant.

Taken piece by piece, "Them" offers remarkable first-person glimpses of history -- feuds within the Politburo, decisions to repress farmers in 1954 and avert Soviet military intervention in 1956, the purge and reappearance of Party Secretary Gomulka, the attempts of the Party leader Bierut to ask Stalin to locate earlier Polish Communist figures who had been executed during the Soviet Great Purge of 1937 and 1938.

Taken as a whole, the accounts of arrests, rhetorical formulae, executions, and repression amounts to a remarkable self-portrait of the Stalinist mind.

Ben Rosamond's book describes the current (and past) political science approaches regarding the EU. A strange animal indeed: not a federality or a state, but takes some of the members' soveirgnity; sometimes its an international organisation, sometimes it isn't.

It is an important book to read BEFORE any other about the EU, so you'll understand to which "side" in the approaches debate other writers belongs.

Quite sadly, this classic edited volume has not received the praise it richly deserves. Alexander Motyl has laced together a galaxy of luminaries in the nationalities field to piece together myriad theoretical approaches to studying nationalities in the former Soviet empire. How wonderful it is to read both Soviet scholars such as John Armstrong and Motyl himself, as well as such noted figures as Ernest Gellner and Anthony D. Smith ruminate on the complexities and contradictions inherent to Soviet nationalities policy. This is a text that unlike most books in the late to post-Soviet period has powerfully stood the test of time. It is a justifiably important work.

Ely's elegant prose drew this reader, who knows little of Russia, into a new landscape and illuminated the ways it was seen (and not seen) by its nineteenth century inhabitants. Although I was familiar with references to the Russian landscape in literature, I knew nothing of the Russian landscape painters of the nineteenth century. Ely introduces this fascinating subject and guides one through the work of such painters as Shishkin and Vasil'ev (with fine illustrations) to an appreciation of the way they saw and painted their native land. He then links this to a developing sense of national identity in the Russia of this period.
I was particularly interested in what this suggests about the role of a nation's landscape in its national myth, in the role it plays as a source of common pride in one's country and the ways we choose to portray specific features of our landscape to ourselves.
A good read from start to finish.

I am a member of AFTRA and I think this book surprised the heck out of me. I thought it might be a dry tellling of the union's history. But no, Ms. Harvey really knows how to tell an engaging tale out of the story of this entertainment union. It really is a page turner, with passages about the Black-listing era that were exciting, depressing and had real echoes and lessons for today. I know Ms. Harvey had access to all of AFTRAs' minutes, and this book reflects the inside story...which is sometimes shocking in its facts. This book is excellent.

Yet another criminally ignored writer. While Chekhov isn't exactly "well-known," he's at least widely recognized, and relatively inexpensive editions of some of his works are available from the likes of Penguin Classics. No such luck for Maksim Gorkii, despite his being one of the best authors of all time. This is, in fact, the first time I have seen an English translation of "Through Russia." For the intents and purposes of this review, I'll assume that this is the same "Through Russia" as the one I read - a collection of Gorkii's short stories. Okay, then.

Gorkii is perhaps the spiritually strongest human being to ever have lived. His three-part autobiography will reveal that he did not grow up in a very happy family, and that's putting it very lightly. Then, before he even entered his teenage years, he was already "among the people," working like the others, and face-to-face with the most grim, banal and disgusting aspects of modern life. But he didn't break under it. Not a chance. Instead of succumbing, he not only managed to maintain his personal honour, grace and dignity, but also sought and fought for something more than the world offered, which he found in the form of books. Surrounded by ignorance and apathy, he nonetheless managed to retain his love of books and of truth - and took it with him to the road. Far from trying to escape life, Gorkii took it on head-to-head, and won. He travelled all over Russia, saw all sorts of people, worked at all kinds of jobs, and saw more in his lifetime than most people ever will, and this book is the result. It is a series of sketches and stories, all of which were directly recorded from his experiences. And what a book it is.

Gorkii's books are life. They're not even Naturalistic - Naturalists researched life, but didn't necessarily record it exactly. Gorkii's books _are_ life. What you're reading is what happened. And it's absolutely amazing. There are unbearable amounts of apathy, dirt and indignity in life, but there are the people, few and far between, who redeem all of it, who rise above their surroundings and shine. Gorkii was such a person, and others are present in this book. Perhaps that ultimately life-affirming reassurance, the knowledge that there are people who know the true value of the world, that makes Gorkii's books so powerful, and what made their author capable of beating life.

Not all of the stories are overwhelmingly powerful. In the middle, the book drags somewhat, apparently retreading the territory of other Gorkii works such as "Okurov Town." But some of these are literally some of the best stories ever written. I can only try to describe them; you'll have to read them. First we have "Birth of a Man," which basically summarizes Gorkii's major theme in fifteen pages. More powerful, however, is "Woman." I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the title character. But the real force of the book comes in the last three stories. First we have one with an untranslatable title, about an encounter the author has with the utter dregs of society, rejected even by the drunks and the freaks, a story about poverty, humanity, and survival. Then we shift gears completely for the odd, almost surreal story of an encounter with a decrepit old farm and its inhabitants in some desert. (I swear, I -heard- the woman sing...) And last is another desert story, wistful and melancholy with a violent conclusion. Its title character's sort of nonchalant fatalism is also not easy to forget. "First I'm here, then I have to leave. At home I have a friend, I leave and he betrays me. When spirits laugh, people cry. That's the way things are..."

I realize I haven't exactly done a good job of describing what these are about, but it's something one has to experience for themselves. Think nothing of the price and buy this book. I hope to hell that the translation is at least competent.

I think everyone should read this book. It only serves to make us realise how lucky we are and how we, especially in the West, can have nothing to complain about. The sufferings of the various women who in some cases had to fell trees in -50 degrees centigrade for 600grms of bread a day is inspirational. At some points I felt that I was ready fictional accounts as I found it hard to believe that mans inhumanity to man, or in this case, woman could be so mind numbingly awful - and for what.....truly terrifying. Exceptional read you will not be able to put it down and the strength of character of the women will stay with you long after you have finished the book.

This is an excellent and innovative examination of the effects the Marxist approach to time had on the Soviet Union. A masterful blend of historical and philosophical discourse--a great read!