The former ambassador and Russia expert delivers an authoritative history of one of the world's most complex and powerful nations, from its founding as Rus to its current incarnation as the Russian Federation.
Russia is the largest country in the world, with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. Over a thousand years this multifaceted nation of shifting borders has been known as Rus, Muscovy, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. Thirty years ago it was reinvented as the Russian Federation. Russia is not an enigma, but its past is violent, tragic, sometimes glorious, and certainly complicated.
Like the rest of us, the Russians constantly rewrite their history. They too omit episodes of national disgrace in favour of patriotic anecdotes, sometimes more rooted in myth than reality. Expert and former ambassador Rodric Braithwaite unpicks fact from fiction to discover what lies at the root of the Russian story.
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
ISBN: 9781800811881
Number of pages: 288
Weight: 400 g
Dimensions: 218 x 140 x 32 mm
Edition: Main
Rodric Braithwaite's Russia is a scholarly yet highly readable gallop through the last 1000 years of Russian history. As befits a distinguished former diplomat, Braithwaite is judiciously opinionated. To understand this tormented nation better - and thereby how Putin came to launch his catastrophic invasion of Ukraine - you can do no better than read this illuminating portrait - Jonathan Dimbleby
Crucial ... readers seeking a more nuanced view [of Russia] will find Braithwaite's brisk and readable account very valuable - Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
Braithwaite's narrative, from the origins of Kievan Rus to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, is wise and thorough. It's the work of a man with a deep inside knowledge of and sympathy for Russia's people and their culture - Spectator
Braithwaite tells us not to give up hope, at least for the post-Putin era - Times
As Britain's ambassador to Moscow between 1988-92, Braithwaite witnessed first-hand the Russian fall from greatness that Putin is now trying to resurrect. He is an engaging guide, though, to the entire past Russian millennium - and writes with the same flair demonstrated in his previous bestseller Afgantsy, about the disastrous Soviet Afghan campaign - Sunday Telegraph
Readers seeking a more nuanced view will find Braithwaite's brisk and readable account very valuable. The book covers more than 1,000 years of history, culminating in what Putin termed the "geopolitical catastrophe" of the collapse of the Soviet Union - Gideon Rachman, FT
A valuable book that would set many pundits straight ... Putin might do well to read [it] - Seamus Martin, Irish Times
Rodric Braithwaite carefully examines 1,000 years of Russian history, explaining how cherished myths evolved and how the Russians have rewritten their past to buttress their self-belief. This is a fine introduction to how the past has shaped the Russian present. Braithwaite, a former ambassador to Moscow, achieves the improbable: a short book about Russia that is illuminating - Times Best History Books of 2022
Praise for Moscow 1941: 'A remarkable epic, vividly portrayed - Sunday Telegraph
A heartbreaking and thrilling story of peerless heroism and misery on a barely imaginable scale - Simon Sebag Montefiore
Praise for Afgantsy: 'This is the book every politician, every general, every diplomat contemplating getting into, or out of, Afghanistan should be made to read. [A] masterpiece - Sherard Cowper-Coles, Guardian
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