A People's Tragedy: Russian Revolution, 1891-1924 - Hardcover

Figes, Orlando

4.36

5,191 ratings by Goodreads

9780224041621: A People's Tragedy: Russian Revolution, 1891-1924

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224041622 ISBN 13: 9780224041621

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1996

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Has dust jacket, ex-library book but in good, clean condition.

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Review:

Written in a narrative style that captures both the scope and detail of the Russian revolution, Orlando Figes' history is certain to become one of the most important contemporary studies of Russia as it was at the beginning of the 20th century. With an almost cinematic eye, Figes captures the broad movements of war and revolution, never losing sight of the individuals whose lives make up his subject. He makes use of personal papers and personal histories to illustrate the effects the revolution wrought on a human scale, while providing a convincing and detailed understanding of the role of workers, peasants, and soldiers in the revolution. He moves deftly from topics such as the grand social forces and mass movements that made up the revolution to profiles of key personalities and representative characters.

Figes' themes of the Russian revolution as a tragedy for the Russian people as a whole and for the millions of individuals who lost their lives to the brutal forces it unleashed make sense of events for a new generation of students of Russian history. Sympathy for the charismatic leaders and ideological theorising regarding Hegelian dialectics and Marxist economics--two hallmarks of much earlier writing on the Russian revolution--are banished from these clear-eyed, fair-minded pages of A People's Tragedy. The author's sympathy is squarely with the Russian people. That commitment, together with the benefit of historical hindsight, provides a standpoint Figes can take full advantage of in this masterful history.

Review:

"It is by far the best history of the Russian Revolution I have ever read."-Frank McLynne "From the Trade Paperback edition."

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