Customer Reviews

Red Star over Russia: A Visual History of the Soviet Union from the Revolution to the Death of Stalin

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A compehensive compilation of colorful propaganda posters, classic photographs and rare snapshots beginning with the Russian Revolution and moving forward. The only downside is the size and placement of the descriptive notes, which are printed in very small type and seem to be laid out in a crammed and somewhat jumbled order. As a result, they are quite tedious and difficult for the eye to follow.

An amazing pictorial companion to all of the verbal histories you've ever read about Russia between the end of the Czars and the end of Stalin. Endless pain and suffering throughout, but underneath it all, the incredible creative energy of the artists and designers and indomitable spirit of the ordinary people.

There are very few countries that have faced the severe traumas the Soviet Union experienced from 1917-1953. Although it may have been a hellish place to live, the Soviet Union nevertheless experienced a period of intense artisitc achievement. The art of this time was original, energetic and fueled by a manic need to educate.

David King is a well known historian of the Soviet Union with a special interest in the use of photography in Soviet propaganda. King is also a serious collector of early Soviet art. His collection encompasses posters, photographs and other paper ephemera. "Red Star Over Russia" is a catalogue of his remarkable collection. Along with his many startling images, King also provides a well written descriptions which place the images in their proper context.

"Red Star Over Russia" is a beautiful book with powerful images printed on high quality paper. This is a highly collectable book that will hold its value over time. In the coming years, "Red Star" will repeatedly provide me with great reading company. Highly recommended.

Lavish, overwhelming imagery and graphics on this period...a white-water rafting trip down the rapids of this period of history when Russia catapulted itself from a feudal society that Europe had left behind in the 1500s/1600s to a modern state in just 30-40 years...while suffering the twin Holocausts of Germany's invasion and Stalin. The book hits you in the face. Lovely old high resolution images, incredible revolutionary graphics.

This book takes the often-bizarre inter-personal struggles that plagued Soviet politics and narrates the story using an array of propaganda art and photos of key players in the early years of the USSR. You can tell it was painstakingly put together, with attention to the overall flow from each image to the next a paramount concern.

Excellent visual history, with concise information relating to each topic. The concise, almost cold nature of the narrative is truly affective, especially as it relates to those pages dealing with the purges, and subsequent executions of countless communists. On many pages, each photo is captioned with nearly identical text - "Was shot on 'insert date'" - a cold reminder of the impersonal and often trivial issues that led to mass murder in this failed state.

I have seen many books of the Soviet Revolutionary era to the death of Stalin, and I'd say as a sophisticated student and observer, RED STAR OVER RUSSIA is the finest in terms of color quality, selection. It's a book you can pore over constantly.

A necessary purchase for anyone with a speck of interest in the Soviet era, at least as it was from inception through to the death of Stalin. The historical photographs and poster artwork amassed by David King and presented here are often stunning.

I especially valued the text and pictures of those defendants in the infamous show trials and the ones of the famous theater director, Meyerhold.

Readers should know that the author, David King, writes out of understandable hatred of Stalin and with less understandable acceptance, if not admiration, of Lenin and Trotsky.

They don't put out lavish books like this anymore, and this is by far the best pictorial on the "new" Soviet Union. The suicide photo of Mayakovsky is worth the price alone. Strange how there's also a famous photo (not included) of the suicide Essenin as well! It's amazing to see endless photos of the higher-ups smiling as they build what they consider to be a new country, and then pages later you get a mug shot of the same person after they'd been tortured. Execution followed. They just wiped out the entire lot of them! Husbands, wives, children... Famous or not, it didn't matter. One doesn't have to agree with Kings personal beliefs (I don't; Trotsky was as bad as the rest of them) to enjoy this book. King keeps it objective. Kudos to the man, what a labor of love! The Art at this time was incredible... A feast for the eyes!

A powerful book that opens windows into Soviet Russia from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 through thirty years of Stalin's reign. What the reader sees is both fascinating and horrifying. I find myself drawn back to the book over and over again, in part because it is too much, way too much to deal with all at once. Stalin's paranoia spared no one. The photos of his victims are haunting.

Interspersed are full color posters, many in the familiar Soviet Constructivist/Agitprop style. Seeing these works in this context rather than on the walls of an art gallery or museum exhibition, puts them in an entirely different light. Chilling.

From the book jacket cover through every page of this book, David King has set the perfect stage for his incredible collection of images. The graphic design is superb. His text is terse. The visual history carries one along like the swell of the revolution itself - until it becomes too much to bear.
I am thankful the pages can be shut...