Stephen Kotkin

An extensively researched portrait of the Soviet dictator covers his rise from humble origins, the inner power structure of the Bolshevik regime, and the early formation of Stalin's fabricated trial process.

Stalin

A brief, vibrant history explores the most momentous event of the late 20th century: the collapse of the Soviet Union. Maps & halftones.

The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000

Armageddon Averted

"A kind of archaeological analysis of Soviet life during the momentous years of Stalinist industrialization."—Lewis Siegelbaum, Michigan State University

Stalinism as a Civilization

Magnetic Mountain

John Scott

Charts the evolution of radio, TV, and cable technology in (mainly) non-technical language, covering the technical, personal, economic, and social aspects of the subject. Emphasizes the strategies, achievements, and failures of individuals and companies in the broadcast industry. For those in or about to enter television broadcasting or its related industries. Acidic paper. Reprint of John Scott's classic account of his five years as a worker in the new industrial city of Magnitogorsk in the 1930's, first published in 1942. It is enhanced by the texts of three debriefings of Scott, published here for the first time. A timely reissue. No index. No bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel

Behind the Urals

Well before 1929, Stalin had achieved dictatorial power over the Soviet empire, but now he decided that the largest peasant economy in the world would be transformed into socialist modernity, whatever it took. What it took, and what Stalin managed to force through, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways. Rather than a tale of a deformed or paranoid personality creating a political system, this is a story of a political system shaping a personality. Building and running a dictatorship, with power of life or death over hundreds of millions, in conditions of capitalist self-encirclement, made Stalin the person he became. Wholesale collectivization of agriculture, some 120 million peasants, necessitated levels of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, but Stalin did not flinch; the resulting mass starvation and death elicited criticism inside the party even from those Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism. By 1934, when the situation had stabilized and socialism had been built in the countryside too, the internal praise came for his uncanny success in anticapitalist terms. But Stalin never forgot and never forgave, with bloody consequences as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite. Stalin had revived a great power with a formidable industrialized military. But the Soviet Union was effectively alone, with no allies and enemies perceived everywhere. The quest to find security would bring Soviet Communism into an improbable pact with Nazi Germany. But that bargain did not work out as envisioned. The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates of their respective countries, drew ever closer to collision. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler: 1929-1941 is, like its predecessor Stalin: Paradoxes of Power: 1878-1928, nothing less than a history of the world from Stalin's desk. It is also, like its predecessor, a landmark achievement in the annals of the biographer's art. Kotkin's portrait captures the vast structures moving global events, and the intimate details of decision-making.

Waiting for Hitler, 1928-1941

Stalin, Vol. II

Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell. In one of modern history’s most miraculous occurrences, communism imploded–and not with a bang, but with a whimper. Now two of the foremost scholars of East European and Soviet affairs, Stephen Kotkin and Jan T. Gross, drawing upon two decades of reflection, revisit this crash. In a crisp, concise, unsentimental narrative, they employ three case studies–East Germany, Romania, and Poland–to illuminate what led Communist regimes to surrender, or to be swept away in political bank runs. This is less a story of dissidents, so-called civil society, than of the bankruptcy of a ruling class–communism’s establishment, or “uncivil society.” The Communists borrowed from the West like drunken sailors to buy mass consumer goods, then were unable to pay back the hard-currency debts and so borrowed even more. In Eastern Europe, communism came to resemble a Ponzi scheme, one whose implosion carries enduring lessons. From East Germany’s pseudotechnocracy to Romania’s megalomaniacal dystopia, from Communist Poland’s cult of Mary to the Kremlin’s surprise restraint, Kotkin and Gross pull back the curtain on the fraud and decadence that cashiered the would-be alternative to the market and democracy, an outcome that opened up to a deeper global integration that has proved destabilizing.

1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment

Uncivil Society

Jan Tomasz Gross

The author of Armageddon Averted and the National Book Award-nominated author of Neighbors document the peaceful collapse of communism following the falling of the Berlin Wall, drawing on case studies to illuminate the factors that deconstructed communist establishments.

Clive Schofield

Bruce Elleman

China shares borders with 20 other countries. Each of these neighbors has its own national interests, and in some cases, these include territorial and maritime jurisdictional claims in places that China also claims. Most of these 20 countries have had a history of border conflicts with China; some of them never amicably settled. This book brings together some of the foremost historians, geographers, political scientists, and legal scholars on modern Asia to examine each of China's twenty land or sea borders.

Twenty Neighbors in Asia

Beijing's Power and China's Borders

Peter Brown

Xinru Liu

Robert L. Tignor

Gyan Prakash

Holly Pittman

Michael Tsin

Suzanne Marchand

Stephen Aron

Brent Shaw

Jeremy Adelman

Benjamin Elman

A truly global approach to world history built around significant world history stories.

A History of the World: from 1000 CE to the Present

Worlds Together, Worlds Apart

Robert Tignor

"A truly global approach to world history, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart is organized around major world history stories and themes: the emergence of cities, the building of the Silk Road, the spread of major religions, the spread of the Black Death, the Age of Exploration, alternatives to nineteenth-century capitalism, the rise of modern nation-states and empires, and others ... The authors have refreshed throughout coverage of the environment in addition to cutting edge scholarship, designed to help students think critically, master content and make connections across time and place."--Provided by publisher.

The most global approach to world history, now more streamlined and accessible.

Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: From 1000 CE to the present

Catherine Evtuhov

MS Catherine Evtuhov

Is there a sharp dividing line that separates Europe into 'East' and 'West'? This volume brings together prominent scholars from the United States, Canada, France, Poland, and Russia to examine the evolution of the concept of Europe in the two centuries between the French Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Inspired by the ideas of Martin Malia, the contributors take a flexible view of the 'cultural gradient'-the emergence, interaction, and reception of ideas across Europe. The essays address three dimensions of the gradient-the history of ideas, regimes and political practices, and the contemporary political and intellectual scene. In exploring the movement of ideas throughout Europe, The Cultural Gradient brings a new historical perspective to the field of European studies.

The Transmission of Ideas in Europe, 1789-1991

The Cultural Gradient

Portrays the changing structure of the industrial state of Magnitogorsk, offering a glimpse of the daily lives of its citizens amid the revolutionary changes under Gorbachev

Soviet Society in the Gorbachev Era

Steeltown, USSR

Alan Karras

Elizabeth Pollard

Clifford Rosenberg

A streamlined and simplified global history

Worlds Together, Worlds Apart with Sources

Worlds Together Worlds Apart

History's cruel tricks -- Reviving the dream -- The drama of reform -- Waiting for the end of the world -- Survival and cannibalism in the rust belt -- Democracy without liberalism? -- Idealism and treason.

András Sajó

Based on two international conferences at Princeton University and the Central European University, this is a handy guide to the problem of corruption in transition countries, with an important comparative content. Political Corruption in Transition is distinguished from similar publications by at least two features: by the quality of the carefully selected and edited essays ans by its original treatment. Instead of the usual preaching and excommunications, this Skeptic`s Handbook represents down-to-earth realism. Combines general issues with case studies and original research. The geographic coverage is wide, though it is ideas rather than a geography that drive the volume`s organization.

A Sceptic's Handbook

Political Corruption in Transition

John Scott's classic account of his five years as a worker in the new industrial city of Magnitogorsk in the 1930s, first published in 1942, is enhanced in this edition by Stephen Kotkin's introduction, which places the book in context for today's readers; by the texts of three debriefings of Scott conducted at the U.S. embassy in Moscow in 1938 and published here for the first time; and by a selection of photographs showing life in Magnitogorsk in the 1930s. No other book provides such a graphic description of the life of workers under the First Five-Year Plan.

Stephen Kotkin

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