Best of
Soviet-Union

1997

Whittaker Chambers: A Biography


Sam Tanenhaus - 1997
    Drawing on dozens of interviews and on materials from forty archives in the United States and abroad--including still-classified KGB dossiers--Tanenhaus traces the remarkable journey that led Chambers from a sleepy Long Island village to center stage in America's greatest political trial and then, in his last years, to a unique role as the godfather of post-war conservatism. This biography is rich in startling new information about Chambers's days as New York's "hottest literary Bolshevik"; his years as a Communist agent and then defector, hunted by the KGB; his conversion to Quakerism; his secret sexual turmoil; his turbulent decade at Time magazine, where he rose from the obscurity of the book-review page to transform the magazine into an oracle of apocalyptic anti-Communism. But all this was a prelude to the memorable events that began in August 1948, when Chambers testified against Alger Hiss in the spy case that changed America. Whittaker Chambers goes far beyond all previous accounts of the Hiss case, re-creating its improbably twists and turns, and disentangling the motives that propelled a vivid cast of characters in unpredictable directions. A rare conjunction of exacting scholarship and narrative art, Whittaker Chambers is a vivid tapestry of 20th century history.

Cold War: The Amazing Canada-Soviet Hockey Series of 1972


Roy MacSkimming - 1997
    For Team Canada, this meant a chance to assemble a "dream team" of NHL professionals and show the world that they still owned ice hockey. Cold War: The Amazing Canada-Soviet Hockey Series of 1972 takes you to the back rooms of the diplomats and apparatchiks who sanctioned this unlikely confrontation--and then puts you on the ice for the rest. The first four games were played on Canadian soil, in four different cities; the final four all took place at the Lenin Sports Complex in Moscow. Despite the absences of Bobby Orr and Bobby Hull, Team Canada's lineup was a memorable one: The Brothers Esposito, Phil and Tony; Paul Henderson; Serge Savard; Ken Dryden; and Frank Mahovlich. Canadians across the continent were confident of a complete blowout. "Eight-game sweep!" the leading sports columnists predicted. But the Red Machine came prepared. The Soviets' fast-paced game of precision passing and surgical attack caught the cocky (and somewhat out-of-shape) Canadians off guard. By the time the series headed to Moscow, the Soviets had jolted Canada and insured that the remaining games would be remembered as perhaps the most fiercely fought hockey of all time.

Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947


Tadeusz Piotrowski - 1997
    The Polish government's response to mounting ethnic tensions in the pre-war era and its conduct of the war effort are also examined.

Camouflage Uniforms of the Soviet Union


Dennis Desmond - 1997
    This excellent reference contains factual and interesting material covering the earliest days of uniform development to the most recent issues of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, former KGB and Spetsnaz forces. Packed with detailed color photographs, this book fills an important void in the collector reference library that has been vacant far too long. Designed with both the militaria collector and Russophile in mind, this book is an easy to use picture guide to the most sought after collectible in the Soviet and Russian militaria field, and is a must for any serious collector or intelligence analyst interested in the former Soviet Union or Russia.

Looking for Trouble: The Life and Times of a Foreign Correspondent


Richard Beeston - 1997
    It recounts an extraordinary and eventful period in the years before instant communication and mass TV coverage and provides a riveting first-hand record of history unfurling during many of the world's most dramatic events of the Cold War era.Richard Beeston describes what the restless, nomadic life of a foreign correspondent is like, providing colourful and lively portrayals of daily life in Fleet Street and communist Moscow; of his years with a radio station for MI6 in the Middle East; and of his acquaintance with the notorious Soviet agent, Kim Philby. Richard Beeston led a truly extraordinary life, superbly captured in this acclaimed memoir - now published in paperback for the first time.

Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, 1944-50


James Bacque - 1997
    Over 2 million of these alone, including countless children, died on the road or in concentration camps in Poland and elsewhere. That these deaths occurred at all is still being denied by Western governments.At the same time, Herbert Hoover and Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King created the largest charity in history, a food-aid program that saved an estimated 800 million lives during three years of global struggle against post–World War II famine—a program they had to struggle for years to make accessible to the German people, who had been excluded from it as a matter of official Allied policy.Never before had such revenge been known. Never before had such compassion been shown. The first English-speaking writer to gain access to the newly opened KGB archives in Moscow and to recently declassified information from the renowned Hoover Institution in California, James Bacque tells the extraordinary story of what happened to these people and why.Revised and updated for this new edition, bestseller Crimes and Mercies was first published by Little, Brown in the U.K. in 1997.

The Soviet Manned Space Programme: An Illustrated History Of The Men, The Missions, And The Spacecraft


Phillip Clark - 1997