Book picks similar to
Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia by Olga Semyonova Tian-Shanskaia
russia
history
nonfiction
russian
The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia
James Palmer - 2008
After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Baron - now in command of a lethally effective rabble of cavalrymen - conquered Mongolia, the last time in history a country was seized by an army mounted on horses. He was a Kurtz-like figure, slaughtering everyone he suspected of irreligion or of being a Jew. And his is a story that rehearses later horrors in Russia and elsewhere. James Palmer's book is an epic recreation of a forgotten episode and will establish him as a brilliant popular historian.
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
Drew Gilpin Faust - 2008
During the war, approximately 620,000 soldiers lost their lives. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be six million. This Republic of Suffering explores the impact of this enormous death toll from every angle: material, political, intellectual, and spiritual. The eminent historian Drew Gilpin Faust delineates the ways death changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation and its understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. She describes how survivors mourned and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the slaughter with its belief in a benevolent God, pondered who should die and under what circumstances, and reconceived its understanding of life after death. Faust details the logistical challenges involved when thousands were left dead, many with their identities unknown, on the fields of places like Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam, and Gettysburg. She chronicles the efforts to identify, reclaim, preserve, and bury battlefield dead, the resulting rise of undertaking as a profession, the first widespread use of embalming, the gradual emergence of military graves registration procedures, the development of a federal system of national cemeteries for Union dead, and the creation of private cemeteries in the South that contributed to the cult of the Lost Cause. She shows, too, how the war victimized civilians through violence that extended beyond battlefields-from disease, displacement, hardships, shortages, emotional wounds, and conflicts connected to the disintegration of slavery.
Russian Thinkers
Isaiah Berlin - 1978
The Birth of the Russian IntelligentsiaII. German Romanticism in Petersburg and MoscowIII. Vissarion BelinskyIV. Alexander Herzen- Russian Populism- Tolstoy and Enlightenment- Fathers and ChildrenIndex
Righteous Dopefiend
Philippe Bourgois - 2008
For over a decade Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg followed a social network of two dozen heroin injectors and crack smokers in the San Francisco drug scene, accompanying them as they scrambled to generate income through burglary, larceny, panhandling, recycling, and day labor. Righteous Dopefiend interweaves stunning black-and-white photography with vivid dialogue, oral biography, detailed field notes, and critical theoretical analysis to viscerally illustrate the life of a drug addict. Its gripping narrative develops a cast of characters around the themes of violence, racism and race relations, sexuality, trauma, embodied suffering, social inequality, and power relations. The result is a dispassionate chronicle of fixes and overdoses; of survival, loss, caring, and hope rooted in the drug abusers’ determination to hang on for one more day, through a "moral economy of sharing" that precariously balances mutual solidarity and interpersonal betrayal.
Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man
Robert S. McElvaine - 1983
Letters written by ordinary citizens to President Roosevelt and other government officials depict the conditions of life in America during the Depression.
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers
Kate L. Turabian - 1955
Bellow. Strauss. Friedman. The University of Chicago has been the home of some of the most important thinkers of the modern age. But perhaps no name has been spoken with more respect than Turabian. The dissertation secretary at Chicago for decades, Kate Turabian literally wrote the book on the successful completion and submission of the student paper. Her Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, created from her years of experience with research projects across all fields, has sold more than seven million copies since it was first published in 1937.Now, with this seventh edition, Turabian’s Manual has undergone its most extensive revision, ensuring that it will remain the most valuable handbook for writers at every level—from first-year undergraduates, to dissertation writers apprehensively submitting final manuscripts, to senior scholars who may be old hands at research and writing but less familiar with new media citation styles. Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, and the late Wayne C. Booth—the gifted team behind The Craft of Research—and the University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff combined their wide-ranging expertise to remake this classic resource. They preserve Turabian’s clear and practical advice while fully embracing the new modes of research, writing, and source citation brought about by the age of the Internet.Booth, Colomb, and Williams significantly expand the scope of previous editions by creating a guide, generous in length and tone, to the art of research and writing. Growing out of the authors’ best-selling Craft of Research, this new section provides students with an overview of every step of the research and writing process, from formulating the right questions to reading critically to building arguments and revising drafts. This leads naturally to the second part of the Manual for Writers, which offers an authoritative overview of citation practices in scholarly writing, as well as detailed information on the two main citation styles (“notes-bibliography” and “author-date”). This section has been fully revised to reflect the recommendations of the fifteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style and to present an expanded array of source types and updated examples, including guidance on citing electronic sources.The final section of the book treats issues of style—the details that go into making a strong paper. Here writers will find advice on a wide range of topics, including punctuation, table formatting, and use of quotations. The appendix draws together everything writers need to know about formatting research papers, theses, and dissertations and preparing them for submission. This material has been thoroughly vetted by dissertation officials at colleges and universities across the country.This seventh edition of Turabian’s Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations is a classic reference revised for a new age. It is tailored to a new generation of writers using tools its original author could not have imagined—while retaining the clarity and authority that generations of scholars have come to associate with the name Turabian.
Making Sense of the Troubles: The Story of the Conflict in Northern Ireland
David McKittrick - 2000
After a chapter of background on the period from 1921 to 1963, it covers the ensuing period-the descent into violence, the hunger strikes, the Anglo-Irish accord, the bombers in England-to the present shaky peace process. Behind the deluge of information and opinion about the conflict, there is a straightforward and gripping story. Mr. McKittrick and Mr. McVea tell that story clearly, concisely, and, above all, fairly, avoiding intricate detail in favor of narrative pace and accessible prose. They describe and explain a lethal but fascinating time in Northern Ireland's history, which brought not only death, injury, and destruction but enormous political and social change. They close on an optimistic note, convinced that while peace-if it comes-will always be imperfect, a corner has now been decisively turned. The book includes a detailed chronology, statistical tables, and a glossary of terms.
Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age
Marcus Rediker - 2004
The real lives of this motley crew-which included cross-dressing women, people of color, and the'outcasts of all nations'-are far more compelling than contemporary myth.
Space Race: The Epic Battle Between America and the Soviet Union for Dominion of Space
Deborah Cadbury - 2005
But until now, we have known only half the story. With the end of the cold war, decades of secrets have been exposed, bringing with them a remarkable opportunity: the unmasking of the true heroes and villains behind one of the most exciting races in history.At the center of this exhilarating, fast-paced account are Wernher von Braun, the camera-friendly former Nazi scientist who led the American rocket design team, and Sergei Korolev, the chief Soviet designer and former political prisoner whose identity was a closely guarded state secret. These rivals were opposite in every way, save for one: each was obsessed by the idea of launching a man to the Moon. Korolev told his wife, "In every century men were looking into the sky and dreaming. And now I'm close to the greatest dream of mankind."In attempting to fulfill this dream, Korolev was initially hampered by a budget so small that his engineers were forced to repurpose cardboard boxes as drafting tables. Von Braun, meanwhile, was eventually granted almost limitless access to funds by an American government panicked at the thought that their cold war enemy might take the lead in the exploration of space. Korolev, whose family life was destroyed by his long sentence in the Gulag, was constantly aware that any false move would finish his career or even his life. His rival, on the other hand, enjoyed remarkable celebrity in America and was even the subject of a 1960 biopic.In this extraordinary book, Deborah Cadbury combines sheeradventure and nail-biting suspense with a moving portrayal of the space race's human dimension. Using source materials never before seen, she reveals that the essential story of the cold war is a mind-bending voyage beyond the bounds of the Earth, one marked by espionage, ambition, ingenuity, and passion.
The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within
Geoffrey Hosking - 1985
It ranges over the changing lives of peasants, urban workers, and professionals; the interaction of Soviet autocrats with the people; the character and role of religion, law, education, and literature within Soviet society; and the significance and fate of various national groups. As the story unfolds, we come to understand how the ideas of Marxism have been changed, taking on almost unrecognizable forms by unique political and economic circumstances.Hosking's analysis of this vast and complex country begins by asking how it was that the first socialist revolution took place in backward, autocratic Russia. Why were the Bolsheviks able to seize power and hold on to it? The core of the book lies in the years of Stalin's rule: how did he exercise such unlimited power, and how did the various strata of society survive and come to terms with his tyranny?The later chapters recount Khrushchev's efforts to reform the worst features of Stalinism, and the unpredictable effects of his attempts within the East European satellite countries, bringing out elements of socialism that had been obscured or overlaid in the Soviet Union itself. And in the aftermath of the long Brezhnev years of stagnation and corruption, the question is posed: can Soviet society find a way to modify the rigidities inherited from the Stalinist past?
Silent Spring
Rachel Carson - 1962
The book documents the adverse environmental effects caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly.The book appeared in September 1962 and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement.
The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book
Peter Finn - 2014
He left carrying the original manuscript of Pasternak’s first and only novel, entrusted to him with these words: “This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world.” Pasternak believed his novel was unlikely ever to be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as an irredeemable assault on the 1917 Revolution. But he thought it stood a chance in the West and, indeed, beginning in Italy, Doctor Zhivago was widely published in translation throughout the world. From there the life of this extraordinary book entered the realm of the spy novel. The CIA, which recognized that the Cold War was above all an ideological battle, published a Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago and smuggled it into the Soviet Union. Copies were devoured in Moscow and Leningrad, sold on the black market, and passed surreptitiously from friend to friend. Pasternak’s funeral in 1960 was attended by thousands of admirers who defied their government to bid him farewell. The example he set launched the great tradition of the writer-dissident in the Soviet Union. In The Zhivago Affair, Peter Finn and Petra Couvée bring us intimately close to this charming, passionate, and complex artist. First to obtain CIA files providing concrete proof of the agency’s involvement, the authors give us a literary thriller that takes us back to a fascinating period of the Cold War—to a time when literature had the power to stir the world.(With 8 pages of black-and-white illustrations.)
Russka: The Novel of Russia
Edward Rutherfurd - 1991
Here is a story of a great civilization made human, played out through the lives of four families who are divided by ethnicity but united in shaping the destiny of their land.
King Leopold's Ghost
Adam Hochschild - 1998
Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million--all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated. King Leopold's Ghost is the haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust. Adam Hochschild brings this largely untold story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara Tuchman. Like her, he knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a London gallows. Two courageous black Americans, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world. Sailing into the middle of the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad. And looming above them all, the duplicitous billionaire King Leopold II. With great power and compassion, King Leopold's Ghost will brand the tragedy of the Congo--too long forgotten--onto the conscience of the West
Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter
Adeline Yen Mah - 1999
Adeline's affluent, powerful family considers her bad luck after her mother dies giving birth to her. Life does not get any easier when her father remarries. She and her siblings are subjected to the disdain of her stepmother, while her stepbrother and stepsister are spoiled. Although Adeline wins prizes at school, they are not enough to compensate for what she really yearns for -- the love and understanding of her family.Following the success of the critically acclaimed adult bestseller Falling Leaves, this memoir is a moving telling of the classic Cinderella story, with Adeline Yen Mah providing her own courageous voice.