Customer Reviews

The Russian Revolution

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

this book is very well written and easy to read. I was interested in learning about the Russian revolution and I found an ancient copy of this book in a used bookstore. It is an excellent total history of the Bolsheviks, and Lenin and a great launching point for more indepth research. My only concern is that the book is a bit old (written in the 1960's) during the cold war -- I was concerned a book from that era might contain inaccuracies. So far that fear has proven unfounded.

This book, published originally in the 1950s, is a general overview of the time period of the Russian Revolution, starting with the births of Czar Nicholas II and Vladimir Lenin in the late 19th century. It then covers the history from the point of view of the czarists and the communists. It touches on major historical figures, and gives a lay down of what social conditions were like immediately prior to the revolutions both of 1905 and 1917. It stops in mid-1917, and so doesn't cover the civil war. The author determined that this rich history laid outside the scope of what he intended to describe.
This is a good though perhaps dated general history. It would be good as an introductory for students looking to learn more about the time period, though there is more recent scholarship out there. It also occasionally flashes Cold War paranoia and pretensions, especially in overly general descriptions of Russian society. Nevertheless, this book is worth the read.

Very straightforward, well-written account of the Russian Revolution. Note that it only covers the period up to the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, not delving into the civil war that followed. That said, this work is a little dated, but still a good overview of a very compelling story

Most of the other posters have successfully analyzed the content of this book. But I will add my "dos centavos" here.

This is a very good history of this event. It is aimed toward the general reader and instead of being filled with footnotes, charts, and other aspects of academia, it tells human stories behind the major and minor players in these events. It reads like a novel and gives you a "you are there" feel to it.

An intriguingly well written literary work. Moorehead takes the somewhat drab subject matter and forms it into an easy-to-read, interesting book!

Alan Moorehead's complete history of the Russian Revolution puts much in context. It is packed full of information and emotional scenes. Yet, since revolutions tend to be chaotic events by nature, it is hard to analyze them (though many have claimed to have succeeded to do so). The two decades that the book covers was an eventful one, and Moorehead goes through the phases in orderly, chronological order. Unfortunately, the cumbersome load of names of people, councils, and various crises makes the book a little hard to follow (not exactly a "Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"). However, Moorehead discloses much information cut out of most textbooks and narratives of the Russian Revolution such as the true founder of Communism. It is a great complement to any textbook on European history, but one must not try to overload one's memory banks. Enjoy!