Customer Reviews (1)

Cosmonautics Book Review
I have owned a copy of this book for years and didn't realize that it had become this collectible or expensive until I started looking for a copy to give my brother-in-law.The cost doesn't surprise me though.I wouldn't sell my copy for any price -- and I mean that seriously; I would reject a $10,000 offer.It simply has what you can get no place else: a complete history of the Soviet space program, with abundant photographs, and excellent descriptive text. If you are fascinated by the American space program, then you are missing a whole other parallel world.Did you know the Soviets had their own space shuttle?It's in here, accompanied by abundant pictures and descriptions.From the barest beginnings to the mid 90's, the book appears to be very complete in every way, from pictures and articles about different cosmonauts, the Soviet rockets and space craft, as well as the people who made the Soviet space program a reality.

If the subject of space exploration fascinates you, then this book is a treasure beyond price -- literally.It is well written in English and opens the door to a world of which we have only seen limited glimpses.For me, it was like opening the door to another world and getting to learn about the Soviet space program in a complete and organized manner, instead of the bits and pieces that occasionally showed up in the western press.Make no mistake about it; this book was printed in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and was put together from what appears to be official Soviet/Russian files and photographs.

If humankind's reaching out into space is a subject you love, then this is the Holy Grail of information about the Soviet/Russian space program. ... Read more

Product Description
The Russian Revolution: 1917-1921 is a collection of documents and sources reviewing the ever-changing debate on the nature of the Russian Revolution. Such events as the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, that had indeed grown from the Revolution, have provided fresh perspectives from which to view it. The collection provides excerpts from newspapers, memoirs and literature, complete with commentary and background information on sources.

With afocus on thematic issues such as the actions of peasants and workers, Ronald Kowalski addresses the key question of whether the revolution was a coup foisted on the people or a popular movement. The book incorporates the latest scholarship and contains newly available documentary material translated into English for the first time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Retracing shadows of the past
This book is a truly educational and absorbing experience for anyone interested in the history of Russia, the revolution of 1917 and the civil war. Not only does it refrain from a one-sided view so tempting for anyhistorian to take, but it also looks as deeply into the events as possible- hardly a single aspect is left out, and each is portrayed in such detailthat no criticism whatsoever could be given it on this part. Another greataccomplishment of the author of this book is the highly down-to-earth viewhe takes upon the reasons for which these events actually ever took place,and their consequtive effects. A broader view upon the fall of the Romanovdynasty may be wished for, however, for the author takes up the soiled ideaof the Tsar`s "own fault" in the matter, whereas many people havecome to see that the Tsar was often under the direct influence of others,and that his mistakes might be blamed only upon his soft nature and not his"laziness" that caused him to WANT to drop the role of Tsar. However, overall this book has highly impressed me and taught me a score ofnew facts that I had never learnt of before. And for this, I must give itone of my highest evaluations - four stars. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

good reference book
It's a good reference or textbook on this subject, some places are boring.
You can find a lot of info about Black people living in Tzar's Russia and Soviet Union, some of that unknown and amusing.

Russia and the Negro
Even though I quarrel abit with the title (are Africans really appropriately named 'Negroes' or is this a uniquely American appellation?), for a relatively obscure subject, this was a good read. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the second edition of Russian Futurism: A History that first appeared some forty years ago. It was a major cultural event at the time and is still the most accurate and comprehensive English-language directory to the literature of the Russian avant-garde. Markov gives an exhaustive, factual description of the movement, avoiding analyses, definitions, and general judgments. Rather, he presents a chronological accumulation of facts, mostly dealing with books, so the approach is similar to taking books from a shelf, one after another, and trying to tell what they are about. People and groups are presented in the process of their growth and development, so that readers feel that they are enveloped by, and have lived through, the whole movement.

The English translations of most of the Futurist writings presented in this study are to be found in Words in Revolution (Lawton and Eagle, eds./trs. New Academia Publishing 2005). ... Read more

Product Description
From the reign of Alexander I to the abdication of Nicholas II, this wide-ranging survey of Russian history follows the development of institutions, classes, political movements, and individuals and draws on a large body of documentary material and contemporary scholarship, making an important contribution to pre-revolutionary Russian studies. ... Read more

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In the new second volume of Brodsky Through The Eyes of His Contemporaries, the collection of interviews features eye-witness accounts of Joseph Brodsky's friends and family members, publishers, editors, translators, students, and fellow poets including John Le Carre, Oleg Tselkov, Petr Vail, Bengt Jangfeldt, Susan Sontag, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, and others.This collection of 40 interviews illuminates an intriguing contemporary phenomenon and affords a fascinating insight into the American literary scene. Continuing the discussion begun in the first volume, this series of interviews contains important discussions on the style, ideas, and personality of one of the most brilliant and paradoxical poets of our time. Subtle, incisive, and rigorous in its critical evaluation, each discussion significantly advances our understanding of Brodsky's complex poetic world. All discussions are linked by core questions that are carefully and sometimes provocatively formulated. The interviews are published together with many unique photographs from the private archives of the author and the interviewees. ... Read more

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This book covers all of the various fighter aircraft designed and employed by Russian forces during the years 1920-1941. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Older info
This book is very general mostly about the condition of the russian airforce at the beginning of WW11 and how it was wiped out very little new information ... Read more

Product Description
Major statements by the celebrated Russian poet Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) about poetry, inspiration, the creative process and the significance of artistic/literary creativity in his own life as well as in human life altogether, are presented here in his own words (in translation) and are discussed in the extensive Commentaries and Introduction. The texts range from 1910 to 1946 and are between two and ninety pages long. There are commentaries on all the texts, as well as a final essay on Pasternak s famous novel Doctor Zhivago, which is looked at here in the light of what it says on art and inspiration. Although universally acknowledged as one of the great writers of the twentieth century, Pasternak is not yet sufficiently recognized as the highly original and important thinker that he also was. All his life he thought and wrote about the nature and significance of the experience of inspiration, though avoiding the word inspiration where possible as his own views were not the conventional ones. The Marsh of Gold strives to make this philosophical aspect of his work better known, and to communicate to readers without Russian the pleasure and interest of an inspired life as Pasternak experienced it. ... Read more

Product Description
This is one of a series of topic books to support the depth studies for Britain 1750-1900 and the Twentieth Century World required by the revised National Curriculum. The book examines the fate of Nicholas II and his family, and events prior to 1917, including the culture, economy and people of the Russian Empire. It also looks at the Bolshevik Revolution and assesses the part played by Lenin in Russian history, and the legacy of the Revolution. ... Read more

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B> This book is a topical, innovative and far-reaching history of the multiplicity of ethnicity's that make up the explosive combination, which is today's Russia.The "national question" and how to impose control over its diverse ethnic identities has long posed a problem for the Russian State. This major survey of Russia as a multi-ethnic empire spans the imperial years from the sixteenth century to 1917, with major consideration of the Soviet phase. It asks how Russians incorporated new territories, how they were resisted, what the character of a multi-ethnic empire was and how, finally, these issues related to nationalism.For those interested in Russian History. ... Read more

Product Description
The history of ideas has played a central role in Russia's political and social history. Understanding its intellectual tradition and the way the intelligentsia have shaped the nation is crucial to understanding the Russia of today. This new history examines important intellectual and cultural currents (the Enlightenment, nationalism, nihilism, and religious revival) and key themes (conceptions of the West and East, the common people, and attitudes to capitalism and natural science) in Russian intellectual history. Concentrating on the Golden Age of Russian thought in the mid nineteenth century, the contributors also look back to its eighteenth-century origins in the flowering of culture following the reign of Peter the Great, and forward to the continuing vitality of Russia's classical intellectual tradition in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras. With brief biographical details of over fifty key thinkers and an extensive bibliography, this book provides a fresh, comprehensive overview of Russian intellectual history. ... Read more

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Political Symbols in Russian History is one of the few works that presents an analytical and comprehensive account of Russian history and politics between the years of 988 to 2005. From Kievan Rus to Putin's Russia, this book traces the development, evolution, and impact that political symbols have had on Russian society. ... Read more

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The great age of Russian philosophy spans the century between 1830 and 1930 - from the famous Slavophile-Westernizer controversy of the 1830s and 1840s, through the 'Silver Age' of Russian culture at the beginning of the twentieth century, to the formation of a Russian 'philosophical emigration' in the wake of the Russian Revolution. This volume is a major new history and interpretation of Russian philosophy in this period. Eighteen chapters (plus a substantial introduction and afterword) discuss Russian philosophy's main figures, schools, and controversies, while simultaneously pursuing a common central theme: the development of a distinctive Russian tradition of philosophical humanism focused on the defence of human dignity. As this volume shows, the century-long debate over the meaning and grounds of human dignity, freedom, and the just society involved thinkers of all backgrounds and positions, transcending easy classification as 'religious' or 'secular'. The debate still resonates strongly today. ... Read more

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This text includes coverage of the following topics: the beginnings of Kievan Christianity; the organization of the Russian Church; the process of Christianization; the Russian Church and the Mongols; and landownership by the Church and the monasteries. ... Read more

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An objective and documentary history of the earliest origins and formative years of the Workers-Peasants Red Army from the Civil War to the initial disasters of the war with Germany, the Great Patriotic War, culminating in the "battle for Moscow" in November-December 1941. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Outstanding classic history of Red Army from it's origins to WWII
The so called review by "Devls Advocate" (sic) is propaganda. "The Soviet High Command" by John Erickson is still THE history of the Red Army, from it's origins up to WWII, by which others are measured. Alongside Erickson's 2-volume history of the war in the Eastern Front ("The Road to Stalingrad"; "The Road to Berlin") this book continues to be a first reference for those seriously interested in the history of early Soviet military affairs. Erickson work is based on an enormous amount of research (as is the case with his 2-volume history of the war in the Eastern Front) based on primary documentary sources. Since first published, particularly since the collapse of the Soviet Union, much new information has become available, but despite this, Erickson's history still stands up remarkably well.

This is Soviet propganda, not history!
Erickson, a notorious communist and bogus half baked historian is not to be trusted with his works, all based on bogus, doctored and unrelaible Soviet semi fictions intended to advance the cause of Bolshevik invincability. ... Read more