Largely basing his account on Russian sources and interviews he shows the war through the eyes of the Russians themselves - politicians, officers, soldiers, advisers, journalist, women. As former ambassador to Moscow, Rodric Braithwaite brings his unique insights to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The story has been distorted not only by Cold War propaganda but also by the myths of the nineteenth century Great Game. It moves from the high politics of the Kremlin to the lonely Russian conscripts in isolated mountain outposts. The parallels with Afghanistan today speak for themselves. 'A superb achievement of narrative history, sensitive writing and exciting fresh research': so wrote Simon Sebag Montefiore about Rodric Braithwaite's bestseller Moscow 1941. But those words, and many others of praise that were given it, could equally apply to his new book.

    At command headquarters, a four-star general pursues a family tradition of military honor that reaches back centuries. They could be any two soldiers in the world. It could be any army - but it's not. The place is the East German border. The time is tomorrow - and the Soviet Army is about to attack. . .While western leaders debate the use of nuclear weapons, the Soviet Army and its Warsaw Pact Allies crash across West Germany, exploiting the NATO armies' deadly lack of preperation. In a matter of days, refugees clog the roads and the cities are in shambles. The Soviet Army wages a brutal battle for Europe - even as the hidden rivalries and divided loyalties within its ranks begon to emerge.In this extraordinary. controversial novel, author Ralph Peters a U.S. Army intelligence officer specializing in the Soviet military - takes us inside an army of dozens of languages and ethnic backgrounds, into the belly of an armored personnel carrier, the cockpit of a MIG, and onto the bloody battlefield where sophisticated tanks duel like ancient, flame-spewing dragons.From Chief of Staff Chibisov, fighting his ethnic heritage, to the daring tank commander Bezarin, locked in an unforgettable duel of wits with a British division, from bitter veterans of Afghanistan to raw recruits, a host of vivid characters are swept up in the chaos and drama. Some will be heroes. Some will die, and others will have their souls scarred forever.As the HATO armies make their last, desparate stands - divided by Soviet maneuvers and their own political squabbling - Red Army thunders to a truly frightening climax.Told entirely from a Russian point of view, Red Army is a riveting tour de force. More than a portrait of high-tech modern warfare, it is a fascingating novel of human strengths and weaknesses - a chilling look at the one army in the world that may have the power to defeat us.

    The three long poems in Eye Against Eye convey the wrought particulars of intimate human relations, perceptions of the landscape, and the historical moment, tense with political exigencies. Mayan ruins invoke the collapsing Twin Towers, love between parents and child blister with tension, and a bicycle thief shatters the narcotic illusion of a private accord. Also contained is Late Summer Entry, a series of poetic commentaries on Sally Mann's landscape photographs. Eye Against Eye, Forrest Gander's third book with New Directions, cries out an ethical concern for the ways we see each other and the world, the potential to share a vision that acknowledges our commonality. As always with Gander's poetry, suspensions and repetitions drive toward a complex emotional experience, evoking the multifaceted, multi-vocal surge of our present.

    How did that happen? What caused the cold war in the first place, and why did it last as long as it did?The distinguished historian Melvyn P. Leffler homes in on four crucial episodes when American and Soviet leaders considered modulating, avoiding, or ending hostilities and asks why they failed: Stalin and Truman devising new policies after 1945; Malenkov and Eisenhower exploring the chance for peace after Stalin’s death in 1953; Kennedy, Khrushchev, and LBJ trying to reduce tensions after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962; and Brezhnev and Carter aiming to sustain détente after the Helsinki Conference of 1975. All these leaders glimpsed possibilities for peace, yet they allowed ideologies, political pressures, the expectations of allies and clients, the dynamics of the international system, and their own fearful memories to trap them in a cycle of hostility that seemed to have no end.Leffler’s important book illuminates how Reagan, Bush, and, above all, Gorbachev finally extricated themselves from the policies and mind-sets that had imprisoned their predecessors, and were able to reconfigure Soviet-American relations after decades of confrontation.

    He might have succeeded Lenin and become the ruler of the Soviet Union. But by the time the Second World War broke out he was in exile, living in Mexico in a villa borrowed from the great artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, guarded only by several na�ve young Americans in awe of the great theoretician. The household was awash with emotional turmoil - tensions grew between Trotsky and Rivera, as questions arose over his relations with Frida Kahlo. His wife was restless and jealous. Outside of the villa, Mexican communists tried to storm the house and kill the man they regarded as a traitor, the Trotskys' sons were being persecuted and killed in Europe, and in Moscow, Stalin personally ordered his secret police to kill his fiercest left-wing critic - at any cost. By the summer of 1940, they had found a man who could penetrate the tight security around the house in far-away Mexico . . .A brilliant reconstruction of one of the most infamous state crimes, and a panoramic view of Trotsky's incredible life. Here is all the squalor, glory, fanaticism and bloodshed of a deadly rivalry.

    These two rows of young men look like any group of American ballplayers, except perhaps for the Russian lettering on their jerseys. The players have left their homeland and the Great Depression in search of a better life in Stalinist Russia, but instead they will meet tragic and, until now, forgotten fates. Within four years, most of them will be arrested alongside untold numbers of other Americans. Some will be executed. Others will be sent to "corrective labor" camps where they will be worked to death. This book is the story of lives-the forsaken who died and those who survived. Based on groundbreaking research, The Forsaken is the story of Americans whose dreams were shattered and lives lost in Stalinist Russia.

    Because of an unhealthy relationship with the bottle, he’s ruined his reputation as one of the South’s preeminent commissioned metal sculptors. And his desperate turn to ice sculpting might’ve led to a posse of angry politicians on his trail. With the help of his sane and practical potter wife, Raylou, Harp understands that it’s time to return to the mig welder. Yes, it’s time to prove that he can complete a series of twelve-foot-high metal angels—welded completely out of hex nuts—for the city of Birmingham. Is it pure chance that the Elbow Boys, their arms voluntarily fused so they can’t drink, show up in order to help Harp out in a variety of ways? And why did his neighbor smuggle anteaters into desolate Ember Glow? Is it true that there’s no free will?

    The walking wounded. These are the stories of ordinary people.

    Reissue.

    Like all Bond movies, audiences believed that the storyline was entirely fictional if not totally crazy. Little did they know that while they munched on their popcorn, the Soviets were indeed preparing to launch a real nuclear attack on the West. 1983 was a dangerous year. In the United States, President Reagan increased defence spending and launched the 'Star Wars' Strategic Defence Initiative. When a Soviet plane shot down a Korean civilian jet, he described it as 'a crime against humanity'. Moscow was growing increasingly concerned about America's language and behaviour. Would they attack? The temperature was rising, fast.By November, Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, a life-long KGB man, had his finger on the nuclear button. Had the US made a move, it would have meant global nuclear Armageddon.It was only the following year that the US - which had never considered a first strike - came to learn just how terrified the Soviet Union was, and just how close to the brink the world had come.In 1983, Taylor Downing draws on previously unpublished interviews, and over a thousand pages of secret documents that have recently been released by Washington to tell the gripping, astonishing story that was almost the end of the world. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.

    Between 1900 and 1920, Russia underwent a complete and irreversible transformation: by the end of these two decades, a new regime was in place, the economy had collapsed, and over 20 million Russians had died during the revolution and what followed. Still, Bolshevik power remained intact due to a remarkable combination of military prowess, violent terror tactics, and the failures of their opposition. And as McMeekin shows, Russia's revolutionaries were aided at nearly every step by countries like Germany and Sweden who sought to benefit—politically and economically—from the chaotic changes overtaking the country.The first comprehensive history of these momentous events in a decade, The Russian Revolution combines cutting-edge scholarship and a fast-paced narrative to shed new light on a great turning point of the twentieth century.

    Combining historical perspective with analysis of modern trends, this expanded edition charts the evolution of modern American health care, providing a complete examination of its organization and delivery while offering critical insight into the issues that the U.S. health system faces today. From a physician-dominated system to one defined by managed care and increasingly sophisticated technology, this essential text explains the transformation underway and the professional, political, social, and economic forces that guide it today and will in the future. Exhaustive in breadth and balanced in perspective, Health Care USA, Seventh Edition, provides students with a clearly organized, straightforward illustration of the complex structures, relationships and processes of this rapidly growing, $2.5 trillion industry. The seventh edition has been thoroughly revised to reflect recent developments in this dynamic industry. The latest edition features: - A comprehensive overview of the complex and evolving U.S. health care system, plus revised data, material and analysis throughout. - The latest benchmark developments in health care, including the response of public health to swine flu and the Obama administration's health care reform. - A look at the recent recession's effects on hospital finances. - New projections and data trends on the country's health care spending. - A forward-looking perspective on the future of the U.S. health care system.

    Professor Weil introduces you to masterpieces such as Tolstoy's War and Peace, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, Gogol's Dead Souls, Chekhov's The Seagull, Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, and many other great novels, stories, plays, and poems. In all, you plunge into more than 40 works by a dozen writers, from Aleksandr Pushkin in the 19th century to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the 20th century. You also investigate the origin of Russian literature itself, which traces its lineage back to powerful epic poetry and beautiful renderings of the Bible into Slavic during the Middle Ages. All of these works are treated in translation, but Professor Weil does something very unusual in the literature-in-translation arena. For almost every passage that he quotes in English, he reads an extract in the original Russian, with a fluent accent and an actor's sense of drama.

    His worldview and his common sense are being defied by an adversary who seems to know everything about him.From the moment he discovers an obscure icon on his desktop, everyday life seems to unravel. Everything he holds dear appears to slip through his fingers and is about to disappear from his life. Unless he manages to make the right defining decisions while working on a challenging drug trafficking case from this point forward. Is knowledge true power?This gripping novel simultaneously plays with your imagination, the fringes of theoretical physics and philosophy. You will be devouring every word, absorbing page by page, positioned on the edge of your seat. Buckle up! "Tomc uses an intriguing story to question the impact of every decision a person can make." - Independent Book Review"The book is truly captivating and unique in the way it weaves genres together." - Literary Titan"You should expect to be impressed and pleasantly shocked." - Indie Book UprisingFinalist in the 2019 IAN Book of the Year Awards in the "Novella" category.Winner of 2018 Breakthrough Fiction Award in the Suspense/Thriller category.

    And her name is the most dreaded in Russian folklore. Rusalka.Impetuous Pyetr Kochevikov, a fugitive from Voyvoda with a price on his head, has none of the superstitions of his fearful young companion, Sasha, as they flee through the vastness of the forest.But when they arrive exhausted at the cottage of the wizzard Uulamets, Pyetr is dismayed to learn that he can mock the spirits no longer. And when he finds himself enchanted by Uulamets' beautiful and wraithlike daughter, no mortal power can assuage the Rusalka's terrible thirst for life...