This biography makes use of archive material to piece together his private as well as public life in an effort to give a complete picture of Lenin in all his different roles. Through the prism of Lenin's career, the author examines events such as the October Revolution and the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, the one-party state, economic modernization, dictatorship and the politics of inter-war Europe. He casts light on the nature of the state and society left behind by Lenin, a state and society which has not entirely disappeared after the collapse of the Soviet regime in 1991.

    Explaining the nature of genetic variation in the human population, how hereditary factors were identified as molecules of DNA, and how certain specific mutations can lead to disease, Slack highlights how DNA variants are used to trace human ancestry and migration, and can also be used by forensic scientists to identify individuals in crime. Slack also explores issues such as the role of genetic heritability and IQ as well as the changes that occur in the genes of populations during evolution. An ideal guide for anyone curious about what genes are and how genetics can be put to use, this Very Short Introduction demonstrates the ways in which the gene concept has been understood and used by molecular biologists, population biologists, and social scientists around the world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

    In this Very Short Introduction, Michael Cook provides a lucid and direct account of the significance of the Koran both in the modern world and inthat of traditional Islam. He gives vivid accounts of its role in Muslim civilization, illustrates the diversity of interpretations championed by traditional and modern commentators, discusses the processes by which the book took shape, and compares it to other scriptures and classics of thehistoric cultures of Eurasia.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundredsof key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    Beginning at the 'arts' end of the subject with the common origins of languages, and finishing at the 'science' end with the newest discoveries regarding language in the brain, this stimulating guide covers all the major aspects of linguistics from a refreshing and insightful angle. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    Historian Jacqueline Stedall shows that mathematical ideas are far from being fixed, but are adapted and changed by their passage across periods and cultures. The book illuminates some of the varied contexts in which people have learned, used, and handed on mathematics, drawing on fascinating case studies from a range of times and places, including early imperial China, the medieval Islamic world, and nineteenth-century Britain. By drawing out some common threads, Stedall provides an introduction not only to the mathematics of the past but to the history of mathematics as a modern academic discipline.

    In this Very Short Introduction, engineer David Muir Wood turns a spotlight on a field that we often take for granted. He sheds light on the nature and importance of civil engineering in the history of civilization and urbanization, outlines its many accomplishments in the modern era, and points to the hurdles that civil engineering will face in the future. Beginning with the task of creating a settlement on a deserted island, Muir Wood sets out the problems that civil engineers face every day, highlighting the social and environmental challenges as well as the grasp of science and technology needed to craft buildings, bridges, tunnels, houses, and areas of recreation. The author also profiles the lives of some of the major civil engineers, such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the acclaimed builder of steamships, railways, and tunnels, and Sir Joseph Bazalgette, whose sewer system in central London was instrumental in relieving the city from cholera epidemics. Finally, Muir Wood considers the growing difficulty of managing our water and energy supplies, and he looks at the engineering profession's increased sensitivity to building and the environment.

    Tucker covers Stalin’s life from his first revolutionary years until the end of the 1920s. This important period of his life is the key to understanding how a dictator is formed and how his cruel totalitarian regime was born. With an in-depth analysis of Stalin’s personality and beliefs – set against a historical examination of Soviet society – this captivating book helps us to understand how and why Stalinism occurred. Examining the events that led up to one of the 20th century’s most devastating spectacles, Stalin as Revolutionary is an intelligent and informative take on this terrifying political figure. Praise for Stalin as Revolutionary “Tucker has achieved a real breakthrough… his analysis throws a flood of light into previously obscure corners… Tucker with his analysis of Stalin’s personality structure has opened up an enormously promising vein of research.” Robert M. Slusser, American Historical Review “This towering figure of the twentieth century has hitherto lacked a successful and full-scale biography… Robert Tucker marks the beginning of the end of this situation.” Robert H. McNeal, Russian Review “An absorbing narrative and interpretation of Stalin’s early years and his development as a Bolshevik leader up to 1929 when he arrived at the summit of power… A superb work comparable to Isaac Deutscher’s multi-volume history of Trotsky.” George Charney, Library Journal “Years of research and reflection have made this biography of Stalin’s early years a real historical and literary achievement.” Foreign Affairs “[The book] looks like it’s transforming the field of Stalin studies... Tucker best brings the political and economic issues back to life, and the contenders with them.” Michael Ratcliffe, The Times “I am not enamoured of most ‘psychoanalytic history.’ Yet Tucker’s thesis is convincing, because he understands the Bolshevik story, knows that Stalin’s seizure of power was due to more than his machine politics and Machiavellian cunning, important though they were to him.” - Dillon O’Leary, The Ottawa Journal “Having read Robert Tucker’s book, we now understand better, in my view, the causes of the events that we had to live through in the years of Stalinism.” - Mikhail Koriakov, Novoye Russkoye Slovo “In this book, an utterly extraordinary one in my opinion, the riddle of Stalin is at last resolved.” - Dimitry Bezrukikh, Russkaya Mysl Robert C. Tucker (1918 - 2010) was a distinguished Sovietologist at Princeton University whose Stalin biographies commanded wide attention. He was called ‘one of the greatest students of Stalin and Stalinism’ by diplomat and Russian scholar, George F. Kennan. His books are used in college classrooms across the world today.

    This engaging overview of the field combines an accessible account of some of the discipline's guiding principles and methodology with abundant examples and illustrations of anthropologists at work. Peter Just and John Monaghan begin by discussing anthropology's most important contributions to modern thought: its investigation of culture as a distinctively human characteristic, its doctrine of cultural relativism, and its methodology of fieldwork and ethnography. Drawing on examples from their own fieldwork in Indonesia and Mesoamerica, they examine specific ways in which social and cultural anthropology have advanced our understanding of human society and culture. Including an assessment of anthropology's present position, and a look forward to its likely future, Social and Cultural Anthropology will make fascinating reading for anyone curious about this social science. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    This Very Short Introduction examines and untangles the various strands of anti-Semitism seen throughout history, revealing why hatred of the Jews appears to be so persistent through time. Steven Beller illuminates the history of the phenomenon: from medieval religious conflict, to the growth of anti-Semitism as a political and ideological movement in the 19th century, to the "new" anti-Semitism of the 21st century, as reflected in Holocaust denial and Islamic anti-Zionism. The author also discusses the role and attitudes of key figures such as Wagner, Nietzsche, and Marx, as well as key texts such as the forged "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." In short, this compact book offers an insightful account that underscores how anti-Semitism reached it its dark apogee in the worst genocide in modern history--the Holocaust--and how it still persists around the world today.About the Series: Oxford's Very Short Introductions offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given topic. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how it has developed and influenced society. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, the series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

    Bertram Wolfe, a political scientist and historian of Russia, knew Trotsky and Stalin personally, and here brings his profound insider's knowledge to bear on his subjects. Three Who Made a Revolution recounts the early lives and influences of the three leaders, and shows the development of their diverging ideologies as decades gave strength to their cause and brought Russia closer to its turning point, a revolution that would alter the course of the twentieth century.

    Modern Art: A Very Short Introduction engages general readers, offering them not only information and ideas about modern art, but also explaining its contemporary relevance and history. The book focuses on interrogating the idea of modern art by asking such questions as: What makes a work of art qualify as modern, or fail to? How has this selection been made? What is the relationship between modern and contemporary art? Is postmodernist art no longer modern, or just no longer modernist? In either case, why--and what does this claim mean, both for art and the idea of the modern?Cottingham examines many key aspects of this subject, including the issue of controversy in modern art, from Manet's Dejeuner sur L'Herbe (1863) to Picasso's Les Demoiselles, and Tracey Emin's Bed (1999). He also looks at the role of the dealer from the main Cubist art dealer Kahnweiler, to Charles Saatchi.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam

    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.

    A thoughtful look at immigration, anti-immigration sentiments, and themotivations and experiences of the migrants themselves, this book offers a compact but wide-ranging look at one of America's persistent hot-button issues. Historian David Gerber begins by examining the many legal efforts to curb immigration and to define who is and is not an American, ranging from the Naturalization Law of 1795 (which applied only to free-born white persons) to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, and the reform-minded Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which opened the door to millions of newcomers, the vast majority from Asia and Latin America. The book also looks at immigration from the perspective of the migrant--farmers and industrial workers, mechanics and domestics, highlytrained professionals and small-business owners--who willingly pulled up stakes for the promise of a better life. Throughout, the book sheds light on the relationships between race and ethnicity in the life of these groups and in the formation of American society, and it stresses the markedcontinuities across waves of immigration and across different racial and ethnic groups. A fascinating and even-handed historical account, this book puts into perspective the longer history of calls for stronger immigration laws and the on-going debates over the place of immigrants in American society.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundredsof key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam

    Explaining the interests, aspirations, illusions, fears, and misperceptions of the Kremlin leaders and Soviet elites, Zubok offers a Soviet perspective on the greatest standoff of the twentieth century.Using recently declassified Politburo records, ciphered telegrams, diaries, and taped conversations, among other sources, Zubok explores the origins of the superpowers' confrontation under Stalin, Khrushchev's contradictory and counterproductive attempts to ease tensions, the surprising story of Brezhnev's passion for detente, and Gorbachev's destruction of the Soviet superpower as the by-product of his hasty steps to end the Cold War and to reform the Soviet Union. The first work in English to cover the entire Cold War from the Soviet side, A Failed Empire provides a history different from those written by the Western victors.In this widely praised book, Vladislav Zubok argues that Western interpretations of the Cold War have erred by exaggerating either the Kremlin's pragmatism or its aggressiveness. Explaining the interests, aspirations, illusions, fears, and misperceptions of the Kremlin leaders and Soviet elites, Zubok offers a Soviet perspective on the greatest standoff of the twentieth century. Using recently declassified Politburo records, ciphered telegrams, diaries, and taped conversations, among other sources, Zubok offers the first work in English to cover the entire Cold War from the Soviet side. A Failed Empire provides a history quite different from those written by the Western victors. In a new preface for this edition, the author adds to our understanding of today's events in Russia, including who the new players are and how their policies will affect the state of the world in the twenty-first century.

    Verbatim reports of speeches by leaders, and comments of bystanders—set against an idealized backdrop of the proletariat united with soldiers, sailors, and peasants—are balanced by passionate narratives describing the fall of the provisional government, the assault on the Winter Palace, and Lenin's seizure of power.Accompanied by contemporaneous photographs, this gripping record by a western journalist has been acclaimed worldwide since its first publication in 1919. Endorsed by Lenin as a "truthful and most vivid exposition," the work was the basis for the Academy Award-winning 1981 film Reds.