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Russia: The Once and Future Empire From Pre-History to Putin |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Iceland History > Item 82
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Russia: The Once and Future Empire From Pre-History to Putin
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by Philip Longworth
Sales Rank: 46920
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List Price: $29.95
$19.77
At Amazon
on 9-16-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 416 pages
Published by: St. Martin's PressEdition: 1st Edition November 28, 2006
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 031236041X
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0312360412
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
Weighs: 1.6 pounds
Reader Reviews
I may be unfair in awarding Mr. Longworth's book only 3 stars. But what do these ratings mean? His book offers nothing new but it is a well written terse synopsis of Russian history. So I rated it at 3 stars. Others might say 4 stars. Why is it not original? It is mostly based on secondary sources, not new research. The first chapter (claimed as original with some fanfare) delves into pre-history and attempts to find the sources of Russian character (and thus history) in the Russian physical environment. The speculative links between the two are well argued, but the conclusions as to Russian character are very general, thus of little explanatory value in specific history, and are in any case ultimately unprovable. And the book's claim to explain the underlying causes of the periodic rise and fall of Russia also breaks down. Its descriptions make clear that each of the four great "boom and bust" cycles of Russian history had its own reasons for Russia's ascendance and, more particularly, for its decline. So the book's attempts to suggest "gee whiz" originality fail. But that said, this is a solid and elegantly written overview of Russian history if you want to compress eleven hundred years into about 300 pages. The focus of the book is political history, and in particular the waxing and waning of Russian imperial conquests, but Mr. Longworth often offers broader sociological or even climatological explanations for what--underneath--really drove events beyond the surface politics of the moment. That approach does offer real value. So I don't mean to underrate the book. It's not brilliant or terribly original, but it is solid. And if you want a quick read on Russian history, you would do well to purchase it. One complaint, however: Mr. Longworth appears to be among those revisionist historians who put most of the blame for the initiation of the Cold War on the West, in particular the U.S. I think he is totally off base, and his arguments in that regard are thinly argued and even more thinly sourced.
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Russia: The Once and Future Empire From Pre-History to Putin
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Price: $19.77
Updated on 9-16-2008.
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