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Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921 Hardcover – 26 May 2022
Antony Beevor (Author) See search results for this author |
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'The book is a masterpiece' The Spectator
'A gripping narrative history of one of the most complex episodes in modern Russian history' Sunday Times
'Antony Beevor's Russia is a masterpiece of history' Daily Telegraph
Between 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. Many regard this savage civil war as the most influential event of the modern era. An incompatible White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky's Red Army and Lenin's single-minded Communist dictatorship. Terror begat terror, which in turn led to even greater cruelty with man's inhumanity to man, woman and child. The struggle became a world war by proxy as Churchill deployed weaponry and troops from the British empire, while armed forces from the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Poland and Czechoslovakia played rival parts.
Using the most up to date scholarship and archival research, Antony Beevor, author of the acclaimed international bestseller Stalingrad, assembles the complete picture in a gripping narrative that conveys the conflict through the eyes of everyone from the worker on the streets of Petrograd to the cavalry officer on the battlefield and the woman doctor in an improvised hospital.
- Print length592 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherW&N
- Publication date26 May 2022
- Dimensions16 x 5.4 x 23.8 cm
- ISBN-101474610145
- ISBN-13978-1474610148
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Product description
Review
Brilliant and utterly readable. ― Antonia Fraser
In Stalingrad, Berlin and The Second World War, Antony Beevor transformed military history by evoking the experiences of those who fought and suffered in some the greatest wars of the twentieth century. Now he has given us what may be his most brilliant book to date - a masterpiece of historical imagination, in which the tragedy and horror of this colossal struggle is recaptured, in its impact on everyday life as well as its military dimensions, as never before. This is a great book, whose depiction of savage inhumanity speaks powerfully to our present condition. ― John Gray
In this brilliant marshalling of a notoriously complex history, Antony Beevor opens up a magisterial canvas of terror and tragedy. ― Colin Thubron
A completely riveting account of how the Russian Revolution, which started with such high hopes and idealism, degenerated into a tangle of civil conflicts marked by hideous cruelty on all sides. Antony Beevor brings his great gifts for narrative and his deep interest in the people who both make history and suffer it to illuminate that crucial period whose consequences we are still living with today. ― Margaret MacMillan
Beevor, best known for his formidable book Stalingrad, commands authority as a historian because his research is comprehensive and his conclusions free of political agenda. He's a skilled writer, but his prose is not what makes his books special. Rather, it's the confidence that his authority conveys - one senses that he knows his subject as well as anyone. He allows his mountain of evidence to speak for itself, simply charting the course of this horrible war, exposing its boundless cruelty. This is easily the most horrifying war story I've ever read. One wonders how Russia could ever contain so much suffering. -- Gerard DeGroot ― THE TIMES, Book of the Week
Antony Beevor's Russia is a masterpiece of history - and a harrowing lesson for today... This is a hugely complex story, and Beevor tells it supremely well. The book is groundbreaking in its use of original evidence from many archives; it adds new facts, tests old claims and demolishes myths on both sides. It is impressively objective.. -- Noel Malcolm ― THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Beevor has provided an illuminating account of one of the darkest, and most misunderstood, periods of 20th-century history. It should be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the origins of Soviet Russia. -- Jonathan Eaton ― MILITARY HISTORY MATTERS
A gripping narrative history of one of the most complex episodes in modern Russian history... An impressive aspect of Beevor's latest book lies in the variety of its sources, from accounts of ill-tempered debates inside Lenin's Bolshevik Party to cocaine-snorting officers in the White resistance army... This combination of clarity with vividness is Beevor's defining strength as a historian. But he also never shies from the most difficult subject - violence. -- Misha Glenny ― SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE
The book is a masterpiece. -- Sara Wheeler ― THE SPECTATOR, lead review
Antony Beevor's Russia - Revolution and Civil War makes compelling use of witness testimony including from Russian archives. . . Beevor hits his stride with the formation of the Volunteer Army and rising military opposition to the Bolsheviks. . . As an account of internecine rivalry the book has panoramic sweep. -- Catriona Kelly ― FINANCIAL TIMES
A wonderfully lucid writer who marshals the extensive material with great verve and understanding. . . Beevor has captured the tragedy in mesmerising detail. -- Andrew Anthony ― OBSERVER
A mass of chilling contemporary testimony in a new history of the 1917-21 Russian experience, written by British historian Antony Beevor, who is winning plaudits around the world. -- Max Hastings ― BLOOMBERG.COM
Beevor weaves his way through the enormous complexities of these years with intelligence, wit, and a talent for describing individuals and events. As one might expect he is in his element when describing battles, campaigns, and the down-to-earth realities of war. He conveys well the appalling savagery, casual violence and suffering brought on by the Civil War. -- Dominic Lieven ― TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Beevor is a fine historian - diligent, conscientious and knowledgeable, with a long list of excellent books behind him. This volume is well researched and full of telling detail. -- Peter Hitchens ― THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
A compelling account of one of the most dramatic episodes in Russian history... Antony Beevor [is] a master chronicler of diplomatic as well as military history. ― Bruce Clark, The Tablet
This grimly magnificent book... is a mind-bogglingly complex story, but Beevor tells it extremely well, demolishing myths on all sides. ― THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, Best Holiday Reads
Book Description
From the Back Cover
Using the most up to date scholarship and archival research, Antony Beevor, author of the acclaimed international bestseller Stalingrad, assembles the complete picture in a gripping narrative that conveys the conflict through the eyes of everyone from the worker on the streets of Petrograd to the cavalry officer on the battlefield and the woman doctor in an improvised hospital.
About the Author
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Product details
- Publisher : W&N; 1st edition (26 May 2022)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 592 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1474610145
- ISBN-13 : 978-1474610148
- Dimensions : 16 x 5.4 x 23.8 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer reviews:
About the author

A regular in the 11th Hussars, Antony Beevor served in Germany and England. He has had a number of books published and his book Stalingrad was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson History Prize and the Hawthornden Prize. Among the many prestigious posts he holds, he is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Photo by Bengt Oberger (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
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1 In the last sentence on page 72 there is a reference to Boris Alliluev renting a flat, I think the correct name is Sergei Alliluev (1866 - 1945), Stalin's father- in-law.
2 In paragraph 3 on page 156 "....Sovnarkom stopped using the old style Gregorian calendar. The country jumped thirteen days to be in line with the Julian calendar of the western world. " In fact it's the other way around as the Bolsheviks ditched the Julian calendar for the superior Gregorian one.
If this is a representative example of Antony Beevors writing, then accessible it is not. The author seems to expect the reader to do all the heavy lifting by coming to the book with prior knowledge of the actors, politics, places and minutiae of Cossack politics.
Amazon says to mention what I used this product for - as a reminder never to read Antony Beevors books and to hand this one into the charity shop.
In the end the allies were marginal & probably get more space than they deserve, but you can witness the bellicosity of Churchill.
A 5 star text let down by the publisher's poor production values. It needs a dramatis personae and far, far more maps, and the index is laughably short.
The magnitude of the slaughter becomes clearer and clearer as the book unfolds. The origins of the Great Famine and the deliberate revenge of the homodolor in Ukraine is better understood through the prism of the Civil War.
Historians speak of the Terror of 1937-8 as if it was a discrete event. This text shows it was nothing of the kind - it was just an extension of the vile genocide policy of the Bolsheviks which ultimately devoured Bolshevism itself.
It's a hard read but worth it, if you can stand it. .
Explains in meticulous detail the ridiculously convoluted history of the Russian revolution, and does so without being boring.
That is a hell of an achievement, matched only by the same author's explanation of the hideously convoluted history of the Spanish Civil War.
Even if you aren't interested, read this.