Pearce sets out to challenge this typical media typecasting: Solzhenitsyn as "paradox personified: the pessimistic optimist." He shows how Solzhenitsyn's Christian faith brought him to the truth that shines so clearly in all his writing: that "creeping knowledge that human history may be little more than a long defeat in a land of exile. Yet such a defeat, however long, is rooted in time: temporal and therefore temporary." Among the features of this major new biography are exclusive personal interviews with Solzhenitsyn, previously unpublished poetry, a rare photo gallery, and a focus on the rich faith dimension of this Nobel Prize winner's life. Any new student of Solzhenitsyn should start with this book.

    Yet Hitler and Stalin signed a treaty of nonaggression that lasted for nearly a third of the war, and that is key to understanding why the war evolved—and ended—the way it did.In The Devils’ Alliance, Roger Moorhouse explains how the two powers—though ideologically opposed—forged a brutally efficient partnership, exchanging raw materials and machinery and orchestrating the division of Poland and the Baltic States. Hundreds of thousands caught between Hitler and Stalin were killed or deported. But ironically, by sharing materiel and technological expertise during the Pact, the Nazis and Soviets made possible a far more bloody and protracted war than would have been otherwise conceivable.Combining comprehensive research with a gripping narrative, The Devils’ Alliance is the authoritative history of the Nazi-Soviet Pact—and a portrait of the people whose lives were irrevocably altered by the alliance.

    

    In search of new Arctic hunting grounds, Albanov's ship, the Saint Anna, was frozen fast in the pack ice of the treacherous Kara Sea-a misfortune grievously compounded by an incompetent commander, the absence of crucial nautical charts, insufficient fuel, and inadequate provisions that left the crew weak and debilitated by scurvy.For nearly a year and a half, the twenty-five men and one woman aboard the Saint Anna endured terrible hardships and danger as the icebound ship drifted helplessly north. Convinced that the Saint Anna would never free herself from the ice, Albanov and thirteen crewmen left the ship in January 1914, hauling makeshift sledges and kayaks behind them across the frozen sea, hoping to reach the distant coast of Franz Josef Land. With only a shockingly inaccurate map to guide him, Albanov led his men on a 235-mile journey of continuous peril, enduring blizzards, disintegrating ice floes, attacks by polar bears and walrus, starvation, sickness, snowblindness, and mutiny. That any of the team survived is a wonder. That Albanov kept a diary of his ninety-day ordeal-a story that Jon Krakauer calls an "astounding, utterly compelling book," and David Roberts calls "as lean and taut as a good thriller"-is nearly miraculous.First published in Russia in 1917, Albanov's narrative is here translated into English for the first time. Haunting, suspenseful, and told with gripping detail, In the Land of White Death can now rightfully take its place among the classic writings of Nansen, Scott, Cherry-Garrard, and Shackleton.

    The result is an insight into wildly differing cultures that are vibrant, hospitable and full of spirit despite numerous hardships.

    The Russians had been taken by surprise by the Germans' sudden onslaught in June 1941.This book tells the story of that long, bitter siege in the words of those who were there. It vividly describes how ordinary Leningraders struggled to stay alive and to defend their beloved city in the most appalling conditions. They were bombed, shelled, starved and frozen. They dug tank-traps and trenches, built shelters and fortifications, fought fires, cleared rubble, tended the wounded and, for as long as they had strength to do so, buried their dead. Many were killed by German bombs or shells, but most of them died of hunger and cold. Based on interviews with survivors of the siege and on contemporary diaries and personal memoirs. The primary focus is on three people: a young mother with two small children, a boy of sixteen at the outbreak of war, and an elderly academic. We see the siege through their eyes as its horrors unfold and as they struggle to survive.

    Mazzeo, author of The Widow Clicquot“An impressive feat of research, told swiftly and enthusiastically.” —San Francisco ChronicleFrom Vanderbilt and Rockefeller to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, America’s captains of industry are paragons of entrepreneurial success, and books about business history, from The First Tycoon to The Big Short, show exemplars of capitalistic cunning and tenacity…but just as American cocktail connoisseurs can mistake Absolut, Skyy, Grey Goose, or Ketel One for the quintessential clear spirit, so too has America’s vision of business history remained naïve to a truth long recognized in Eastern Europe: since the time of Tsar Nicholas, both vodka and commercial success have been synonymous in Russia with one name—Smirnoff. Linda Himelstein’s critically acclaimed biography of Russian vodka scion Pyotr Smirnov—a finalist for the James Beard Award, winner of the IACP and Saroyan Awards, and a BusinessWeek Best Business Book of 2009—is the sweeping story of entrepreneurship, empire, and epicurean triumph unlike anything the world has ever seen before.

    This is such a story. Brian Grover was a brilliant, young engineer who seemed to have everything. His parents wanted him to join the army and settle down, but he had other ideas. In 1931, in a move that was to dramatically change the course of his life, he fled to Russia seeking fortune and adventure. Set against a background of political and social turmoil, this heart-warming and exquisitely written true story of one man's courage, bravery, and unswerving determination to be with the woman he loved is an inspiration and a delight.

    '[A] masterpiece of reportorial thoroughness, painstaking research, and serious reflection.' Edward Said

    It is also a wonderful piece of travel writing. Custine, who met with people in all walks of life, including the Czar himself, offers vivid descriptions of St. Petersburg and Moscow, of life at court and on the street, and of the impoverished Russian countryside. But together with a wealth of sharply delineated incident and detail, Custine's great work also presents an indelible picture--roundly denounced by both Czarist and Communist regimes--of a country crushed by despotism and "intoxicated with slavery."Letters from Russia, here published in a new edition prepared by Anka Muhlstein, the author of the Goncourt Prize-winning biography of Custine, stands with Tocqueville's Democracy in America as a profound and passionate encounter with historical forces that are still very much at work in the world today.

    The overwhelming majority of works on empire concentrate on the European maritime powers. Lieven’s comparative approach highlights the important role played by Russia in the expansion of Europe and its rise to global dominance. The book contrasts the nature, strategies, and fate of empire in Russia with that of its major rivals, the Habsburg, Ottoman, and British empires, and considers a broad range of other cases from ancient China and Rome to the present-day United States, Indonesia, India, and the European Union.Many of the dilemmas of empire persist in today’s world, and Lieven throws new light on some of the most intractable current examples, including the crisis in the former Soviet Union, the troubles in Ulster, and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. This major examination of the imperial experience presents history on the grandest scale, combining formidable erudition with stimulating readability.

    Following on the success of the handbooks dealing with elves, gnomes, and dwarves, it provides all the information necessary to play intelligent humanoid creatures as PC's. Illustrations, many in color.

    

    The Rudomin family has been arrested by the Russians. They are "capitalists' enemies of the people." Forced from their home and friends in Vilna, Poland, they are herded into crowded cattle cars. Their destination: the endless steppe of Siberia.For five years, Esther and her family live in exile, weeding potato fields and working in the mines, struggling for enough food and clothing to stay alive. Only the strength of family sustains them and gives them hope for the future.

    It slowed down the German advance into Russia and became a national symbol of survival and resistance. An estimated one million civilians died, most of them from cold and starvation. Lydia Ginzburg, a respected literary scholar (who meanwhile wrote prose 'for the desk drawer' through seven decades of Soviet rule), survived. Using her own using notes and sketches she wrote during the siege, along with conversations and impressions collected over the years, she distilled the collective experience of life under siege. Through painful depiction of the harrowing conditions of that period, Ginzburg created a paean to the dignity, vitality and resilience of the human spirit.This original translation by Alan Myers has been revised and annotated by Emily van Buskirk. This edition includes ‘A Story of Pity and Cruelty’, a recently discovered documentary narrative translated into English for the first time by Angela Livingstone.