Paul Bushkovitch - A Concise History of Russia

For any student trying to get a grasp of the essentials of Russian history this book is the place to start. To cover everything from the origins of the Russian people to the collapse of the Soviet Union in one short book requires great skill, but Paul Bushkovitch is one of the leading experts on Russian history in the world and he manages this task with great insight and panache.

Dominic Lieven, Trinity College, Cambridge University

This is a lively and readable account, covering more than a thousand years of Russian history in an authoritative narrative. The author deals perceptively not only with political developments, but also with those aspects of modern Russian culture and science that have had an international impact.

Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham

If you want to understand Russia, and the story of the Russians, you can do no better than Paul Bushkovitchs A Concise History of Russia . Bushkovitch has performed a minor miracle: hes told the remarkably complicated, convoluted, and controversial tale of Russian history simply, directly, and even-handedly. He doesnt get mired in the details, lost in the twists and turns, or sidetracked by axe grinding. He tells you what happened and why, full stop. So if you want to know what happened and why in Russian history, youd be advised to begin with Bushkovitchs masterful introduction.

Marshall Poe, University of Iowa

Both learned and accessible, this short history of Russias troubled passage to the present tells a story of a state and a people who created an empire that much of the world saw as a threat. Whether as the Gendarme of Europe or the Red Menace, Russia and its Soviet successor (even Putins Russia today!) have been as much misunderstood as they have been feared. Paul Bushkovitch brings us a sober reading of Russias difficult rises and falls, expansions and contractions, reforms and revolutions. Rather than seeing the preceding millennium as a prelude to the seventy years of the Soviet Union, he gives us a rounded portrait of a country hobbled and humbled by its own geography, institutions like autocracy and serfdom, and grandiose plans to create utopia. Judicious in its judgments, this gracefully written work ranges from high politics to music and literature to open a window through which a reader might begin or renew an acquaintance with the enigmas that were Russia.

Ronald Grigor Suny, University of Michigan