22 Best Russia & the Former Soviet Union, History Books
Russia & the Former Soviet Union, History is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top Russia & the Former Soviet Union, History audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 22 Russia & the Former Soviet Union, History audiobooks below.
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Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika
- By: Scott Ritter
- Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 18 hours 43 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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4.83(5 ratings)
4.83(5 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDDisarmament in the Time of Perestroika is the definitive history of the implementation of the INF Treaty signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in all its complexities, and the lengths both sides went to “trust, but verify” thisDisarmament in the Time of Perestroika is the definitive history of the implementation of the INF Treaty signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in all its complexities, and the lengths both sides went to “trust, but verify” this successful and unique historic disarmament process. It demonstrates how two nations fundamentally at odds with one another could come together and rid the world of weapons which threatened international peace and security and, indeed, all of humanity. Those engaged were pioneers in what was to be the new frontier of superpower arms control–on-site inspection–that would define compliance verification for future treaties and agreements to come. Their work represents not just a guide to but the standard upon which all future on-site inspections will be based and judged.
Ritter traces in great detail the formation of the On-Site Inspection Agency, who was involved, and how a technologically advanced compliance verification system was installed outside the gates of one of the most sensitive military industrial facilities in the remote Soviet city of Votkinsk, nestled in the foothills of the Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union. He draws upon his own personal history– occasionally hilarious, occasionally fraught with peril– as well as the recollections of the other inspectors and personnel involved, and an extensive archive of reports and memoranda relating to the work of OSIA to tell the story of how OSIA was created, and the first three years of inspection operations at the Votkinsk portal monitoring facility. The Votkinsk Portal, circa December 1988, was the wild, wild East of arms control, a place where the inspectors and inspected alike were writing the rules of the game as it played out before them.
This treaty implementation did not occur in a geopolitical vacuum. Ritter captures, on a human level, the historic changes taking place inside the Soviet Union under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev due to the new policies of perestroika and glasnost that gripped the Soviet Union during this time, and their real and meaningful impact on the lives of the Soviet people, and the economic functioning of the Soviet nation. Much of it was for the worse.
The INF treaty was not only born of these new policies, but also helped trigger meaningful changes inside the Soviet Union due to the economic and political implications brought on by the cessation of missile production in a factory town whose lifeblood was missile production.
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The Abyss
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrator: Max Hastings
- Length: 19 hours 9 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: October 18, 2022
- Language: English
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4.56(214 ratings)
4.56(214 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDBestselling author Max Hastings offers a welcome re-evaluation of one of the most gripping and tense international events in modern history–the Cuban Missile Crisis–providing a people-focused narrative that explores the attitudes andBestselling author Max Hastings offers a welcome re-evaluation of one of the most gripping and tense international events in modern history–the Cuban Missile Crisis–providing a people-focused narrative that explores the attitudes and conduct of Russians, Cubans, Americans, and a terrified world that followed each moment as it unfolded.
In The Abyss, Max Hastings turns his focus to one of the most terrifying events of the mid-twentieth century–the thirteen days in October 1962 when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Hastings looks at the conflict with fresh eyes, focusing on the people at the heart of the crisis–America President John F. Kennedy, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, and a host of their advisors.
Combining in-depth research with Hasting’s well-honed insights, The Abyss is a human history that unfolds on a wide, colorful canvas. As the action moves back and forth from Moscow to Washington, DC, to Havana, Hastings seeks to explain, as much as to describe, the attitudes and conduct of the Soviets, Cubans, and Americans, and to recreate the tension and heightened fears of countless innocent bystanders whose lives hung in the balance. Reflecting on the outcome of these events, he reveals how the aftermath of this momentous crisis continues to reverberate today.
Powerful, and riveting, filled with compelling detail and told with narrative flair, The Abyss is history at its finest.
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Hitler and Stalin
- By: Laurence Rees
- Narrator: John Sackville
- Length: 18 hours 17 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: February 02, 2021
- Language: English
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4.52(390 ratings)
4.52(390 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0038.99 USDAn award-winning historian plumbs the depths of Hitler and Stalin’s vicious regimes, and shows the extent to which they brutalized the world around them.Two 20th century tyrants stand apart from all the rest in terms of their ruthlessness andAn award-winning historian plumbs the depths of Hitler and Stalin’s vicious regimes, and shows the extent to which they brutalized the world around them.
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Two 20th century tyrants stand apart from all the rest in terms of their ruthlessness and the degree to which they changed the world around them. Briefly allies during World War II, Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin then tried to exterminate each other in sweeping campaigns unlike anything the modern world had ever seen, affecting soldiers and civilians alike. Millions of miles of Eastern Europe were ruined in their fight to the death, millions of lives sacrificed.Laurence Rees has met more people who had direct experience of working for Hitler and Stalin than any other historian. Using their evidence he has pieced together a compelling comparative portrait of evil, in which idealism is polluted by bloody pragmatism, and human suffering is used casually as a political tool. It’s a jaw-dropping description of two regimes stripped of moral anchors and doomed to destroy each other, and those caught up in the vicious magnetism of their leadership. -
Tunnel 29
- By: Helena Merriman
- Narrator: Helena Merriman
- Length: 9 hours 33 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: August 24, 2021
- Language: English
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4.5(1553 ratings)
4.5(1553 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDHe escaped from one of the world’s most brutal regimes.Then, he decided to tunnel back in. In the summer of 1962, a young student named Joachim Rudolph dug a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Waiting on the other side in East Berlin were dozensHe escaped from one of the world’s most brutal regimes.Then, he decided to tunnel back in.
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In the summer of 1962, a young student named Joachim Rudolph dug a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Waiting on the other side in East Berlin were dozens of men, women, and children–all willing to risk everything to escape.
From the award-winning creator of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 podcast, Tunnel 29 is the true story of this most remarkable Cold War rescue mission. Drawing on interviews with the survivors and Stasi files, Helena Merriman brilliantly reveals the stranger-than-fiction story of the ingenious group of student-diggers, the glamorous red-haired messenger, the Stasi spy who threatened the whole enterprise, and the love story that became its surprising epilogue.
Tunnel 29 was also the first made-for-TV event of its kind; it was funded by NBC, who wanted to film an escape in real time. Their documentary–which was nearly blocked from airing by the Kennedy administration, which wanted to control the media during the Cold War–revolutionized TV journalism.
Ultimately, Tunnel 29 is a success story about freedom: the valiant citizens risking everything to win it back, and the larger world rooting for them to triumph. -
In the Midst of Civilized Europe
- By: Jeffrey Veidlinger
- Narrator: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 14 hours 45 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: October 26, 2021
- Language: English
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4.38(96 ratings)
4.38(96 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0032.99 USDFINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD * SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE “The mass killings of Jews from 1918 to 1921 are a bridge between local pogroms and the extermination of the Holocaust. No history of that Jewish catastropheFINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD * SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE
“The mass killings of Jews from 1918 to 1921 are a bridge between local pogroms and the extermination of the Holocaust. No history of that Jewish catastrophe comes close to the virtuosity of research, clarity of prose, and power of analysis of this extraordinary book. As the horror of events yields to empathetic understanding, the reader is grateful to Veidlinger for reminding us what history can do.”
–Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands
Between 1918 and 1921, over a hundred thousand Jews were murdered in Ukraine by peasants, townsmen, and soldiers who blamed the Jews for the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. In hundreds of separate incidents, ordinary people robbed their Jewish neighbors with impunity, burned down their houses, ripped apart their Torah scrolls, sexually assaulted them, and killed them. Largely forgotten today, these pogroms–ethnic riots–dominated headlines and international affairs in their time. Aid workers warned that six million Jews were in danger of complete extermination. Twenty years later, these dire predictions would come true.Drawing upon long-neglected archival materials, including thousands of newly discovered witness testimonies, trial records, and official orders, acclaimed historian Jeffrey Veidlinger shows for the first time how this wave of genocidal violence created the conditions for the Holocaust. Through stories of survivors, perpetrators, aid workers, and governmental officials, he explains how so many different groups of people came to the same conclusion: that killing Jews was an acceptable response to their various problems. In riveting prose, In the Midst of Civilized Europe repositions the pogroms as a defining moment of the twentieth century.
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A Macmillan Audio production from Metropolitan Books -
The New Cold War
- By: Jeffrey Engel
- Length: 54 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: May 04, 2021
- Language: English
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4.31(119 ratings)
4.31(119 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDOne Day University presents a series of audio lectures recorded in real-time from some of the top minds in the United States. Given by award-winning professors and experts in their field, these recorded lectures dive deep into the worlds ofOne Day University presents a series of audio lectures recorded in real-time from some of the top minds in the United States. Given by award-winning professors and experts in their field, these recorded lectures dive deep into the worlds of religion, government, literature, and social justice. The Cold War’s end was supposed to bring about a new era of East-West cooperation, integrating Russia for perhaps the first time as an equal player in European and Atlantic affairs. Democracy was emerging, along with free markets. The end of old history appeared in sight, replaced by the new. We were poised to share “one common European home,” the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev pledged. And we shall all have peace. “Eastern Europe is free,” George H.W. Bush proclaimed as 1991 came to an end. “This is a victory for democracy and freedom. Every American can take pride in this victory.” Well, the promised post-Cold War peace did not endure. The West’s triumph brought the average citizen in the former Soviet Union a shorter life-span, a lower standard of living, and a long list of new grudges. As Boris Yeltsin gave way to Vladimir Putin by the 20th century’s end, the stage was set for what some are now terming a new Cold War, replete with hacking, election influence, annexations, and new East-West tensions. Moscow once more appears Washington’s adversary, though that is a view seldom voiced in the White House. How did we get from the Cold War’s end to its apparent renewal? This audio lecture includes a supplemental PDF.
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Stalin’s War
- By: Sean McMeekin
- Narrator: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 24 hours 56 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: April 20, 2021
- Language: English
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4.23(565 ratings)
4.23(565 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0044.99 USDA prize-winning historian reveals how Stalin–not Hitler–was the animating force of World War II in this major new history.World War II endures in the popular imagination as a heroic struggle between good and evil, with villainous HitlerA prize-winning historian reveals how Stalin–not Hitler–was the animating force of World War II in this major new history.
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World War II endures in the popular imagination as a heroic struggle between good and evil, with villainous Hitler driving its events. But Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia–and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler’s war; it was Stalin’s war.
Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin’s War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler’s genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941-1945 fulfill Stalin’s goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.
McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain’s self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin’s war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiel from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army.
This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin’s armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.
A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin’s War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world order. -
A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka
- By: Lev Golinkin
- Narrator: Daniel Gamburg
- Length: 9 hours 29 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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4.18(2155 ratings)
4.18(2155 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDA compelling story of two intertwined journeys: a Jewish refugee family fleeing persecution and a young man seeking to reclaim a shattered past In the twilight of the Cold War, nine-year-old Lev Golinkin and his family cross the Soviet border withA compelling story of two intertwined journeys: a Jewish refugee family fleeing persecution and a young man seeking to reclaim a shattered past
In the twilight of the Cold War, nine-year-old Lev Golinkin and his family cross the Soviet border with only ten suitcases, $600, and the vague promise of help awaiting in Vienna. Years later, Lev, now an American adult, sets out to retrace his family’s long trek, locate the strangers who fought for his freedom, and in the process, gain a future by understanding his past.
Lev Golinkin’s memoir is the vivid, darkly comic, and poignant story of a young boy in the confusing and often chilling final decade of the Soviet Union. It’s also the story of Lev Golinkin, the American man who finally confronts his buried past by returning to Austria and Eastern Europe to track down the strangers who made his escape possible … and thank them. Written with biting, acerbic wit and emotional honesty in the vein of Gary Shteyngart, Jonathan Safran Foer, and David Bezmozgis, Golinkin’s search for personal identity set against the relentless currents of history is more than a memoir: it’s a portrait of a lost era. This is a thrilling tale of escape and survival, a deeply personal look at the life of a Jewish child caught in the last gasp of the Soviet Union, and a provocative investigation into the power of hatred and the search for belonging. Lev Golinkin achieves an amazing feat–and it marks the debut of a fiercely intelligent, defiant, and unforgettable new voice.
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The House of Government
- By: Yuri Slezkine
- Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 45 hours 9 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2017
- Language: English
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4.15(548 ratings)
4.15(548 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDOn the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and theOn the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction
The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment. Written in the tradition of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Grossman’s Life and Fate, and Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, Yuri Slezkine’s gripping narrative tells the true story of the residents of an enormous Moscow apartment building where top Communist officials and their families lived before they were destroyed in Stalin’s purges. A vivid account of the personal and public lives of Bolshevik true believers, the book begins with their conversion to Communism and ends with their children’s loss of faith and the fall of the Soviet Union.
Completed in 1931, the House of Government, later known as the House on the Embankment, was located across the Moscow River from the Kremlin. The largest residential building in Europe, it combined 505 furnished apartments with public spaces that included everything from a movie theater and a library to a tennis court and a shooting range. Slezkine tells the chilling story of how the building’s residents lived in their apartments and ruled the Soviet state until some eight hundred of them were evicted from the House and led, one by one, to prison or their deaths.
Drawing on letters, diaries, and interviews, The House of Government weaves together biography, literary criticism, architectural history, and fascinating new theories of revolutions, millennial prophecies, and reigns of terror. The result is an unforgettable human saga of a building that, like the Soviet Union itself, became a haunted house, forever disturbed by the ghosts of the disappeared.
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The Great Terror
- By: Robert Conquest
- Narrator: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 30 hours 34 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2009
- Language: English
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4.13(900 ratings)
4.13(900 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0038.95 USDThe definitive work on Stalin’s purges, The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. In recent years, even the former Soviet Union has come to call it the definitive account of the period. While the originalThe definitive work on Stalin’s purges, The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. In recent years, even the former Soviet Union has come to call it the definitive account of the period. While the original volume relied heavily on unofficial sources, later developments within the Soviet Union provided an avalanche of new material, which Conquest has mined, to write this revised and updated edition of his classic work. Under the light of fresh evidence, it is remarkable how many of Conquest’s most disturbing conclusions have been verified. Many details have also been added, including hitherto secret information on the three great “Moscow Trials,” the purge of writers and other members of the intelligentsia, life in the labor camps, and many other key matters. Both a leading historian and a highly respected poet, Conquest blends profound research with evocative prose to create a compelling and eloquent chronicle of one of the twentieth century’s most tragic events.
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Dancing on Bones
- By: Katie Stallard
- Length: 8 hours 32 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: May 17, 2022
- Language: English
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4.13(43 ratings)
4.13(43 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDHistory didn’t end. Democracy didn’t triumph. America’s leading role in the world is no longer assured. Instead, authoritarian rule is on the rise, and the global order established after 1945 is under attack. This is the phenomenonHistory didn’t end. Democracy didn’t triumph. America’s leading role in the world is no longer assured. Instead, authoritarian rule is on the rise, and the global order established after 1945 is under attack. This is the phenomenon Katie Stallard tackles in Dancing on
Bones as she examines how the leaders of China, Russia, and North Korea manipulate the past to serve the present and secure the future of authoritarian rule.Russia has annexed Crimea, started a war in eastern Ukraine, and repeatedly massed troops on its borders. China has stepped up war games near Taiwan and militarized the South China Sea, while North Korea has resumed missile testing and blood-curdling threats
against the United States. These three states consistently top lists of threats to US and European security, and yet the leaders of all three insist that it is their country that is threatened, rewriting history and exploiting the memory of the wars of the last century to
justify their actions and shore up popular support. Since coming to power, Xi Jinping has almost doubled the length of China’s World War II, Vladimir Putin has elevated the memory of the Great Patriotic War to the status of a national religion, and Kim Jong Un has invested
vast sums in rebuilding war museums in his impoverished state, while those who try to challenge the official version of history are silenced and jailed. But this didn’t start with Putin, Xi, and Kim, and it won’t end with them.Drawing on first-hand, on-the-ground reporting, Dancing on Bones argues that if we want to understand where these three nuclear powers are heading, we must understand the stories they are telling their citizens about the past.
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Midnight in Chernobyl
- By: Adam Higginbotham
- Narrator: Jacques Roy
- Length: 13 hours 55 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.06(16 ratings)
4.06(16 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0023.99 USDOne of AudioFile’s Best Audiobooks of 2019!A New York Times Best Book of the Year A Time Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Winner One of NPR’s Best Books ofOne of AudioFile’s Best Audiobooks of 2019!
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A New York Times Best Book of the Year
A Time Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Winner
One of NPR’s Best Books of 2019
Journalist Adam Higginbotham’s definitive, years-in-the-making account of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster–and a powerful investigation into how propaganda, secrecy, and myth have obscured the true story of one of the twentieth century’s greatest disasters.
Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, Reactor Number Four of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded, triggering history’s worst nuclear disaster. In the thirty years since then, Chernobyl has become lodged in the collective nightmares of the world: shorthand for the spectral horrors of radiation poisoning, for a dangerous technology slipping its leash, for ecological fragility, and for what can happen when a dishonest and careless state endangers its citizens and the entire world. But the real story of the accident, clouded from the beginning by secrecy, propaganda, and misinformation, has long remained in dispute.
Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted over the course of more than ten years, as well as letters, unpublished memoirs, and documents from recently-declassified archives, Adam Higginbotham has written a harrowing and compelling narrative which brings the disaster to life through the eyes of the men and women who witnessed it firsthand. The result is a masterful nonfiction thriller, and the definitive account of an event that changed history: a story that is more complex, more human, and more terrifying than the Soviet myth.
Midnight in Chernobyl is an indelible portrait of one of the great disasters of the twentieth century, of human resilience and ingenuity, and the lessons learned when mankind seeks to bend the natural world to his will–lessons which, in the face of climate change and other threats, remain not just vital but necessary. -
The Resurrection of the Romanovs
- By: Greg King
- Narrator: Peter Kenny
- Length: 13 hours 40 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: March 20, 2018
- Language: English
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4(470 ratings)
4(470 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDThe passage of more than ninety years and the publication of hundreds of books in dozens of languages has not extinguished an enduring interest in the mysteries surrounding the 1918 execution of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family. TheThe passage of more than ninety years and the publication of hundreds of books in dozens of languages has not extinguished an enduring interest in the mysteries surrounding the 1918 execution of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family. The Resurrection of the Romanovs draws on a wealth of new information from previously unpublished materials and unexplored sources to probe the most enduring Romanov mystery of all: the fate of the Tsar’s youngest daughter, Anastasia, whose remains were not buried with those of her family, and her identification with Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be the missing Grand Duchess. Refuting long-accepted evidence in the Anderson case, The Resurrection of the Romanovs finally explodes the greatest royal mystery of the twentieth-century. Covers the subject so thoroughly and so honestly that this is almost certainly the last book that needs to be written. -Robert K. Massie, author of Nicholas and Alexandra
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Death of a Dissident
- By: Alex Goldfarb
- Narrator: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 5 hours 41 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2007
- Language: English
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3.97(344 ratings)
3.97(344 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.95 USDThe assassination of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander “Sasha” Litvinenko in November 2006 — poisoned by the rare radioactive element polonium — caused an international sensation. Within a few short weeks, the fitThe assassination of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander “Sasha” Litvinenko in November 2006 — poisoned by the rare radioactive element polonium — caused an international sensation. Within a few short weeks, the fit forty-three-year-old lay gaunt, bald, and dying in a hospital, the victim of a “tiny nuclear bomb.” Suspicions swirled around Russia’s FSB, the successor to the KGB, and the Putin regime. Traces of polonium radiation were found in Germany and on certain airplanes, suggesting a travel route from Russia for the carriers of the fatal poison. But what really happened? What did Litvinenko know? And why was he killed?
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The full story of Sasha Litvinenko’s life and death is one that the Kremlin does not want told. His closest friend, Alex Goldfarb, and his widow, Marina, are the only two people who can tell it all, from firsthand knowledge, with dramatic scenes from Moscow to London to Washington. Death of a Dissident reads like a political thriller, yet its story is more fantastic and frightening than any novel.
Ever since 1998, when Litvinenko denounced the FSB for ordering him to assassinate tycoon Boris Berezovsky, he had devoted his life to exposing the FSB’s darkest secrets. After a dramatic escape to London with Goldfarb’s assistance, he spent six years, often working with Goldfarb, investigating a widening series of scandals. Oligarchs and journalists have been assassinated. Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yuschenko was poisoned on the campaign trail. The war in Chechnya became unspeakably harsh on both sides. Sasha Litvinenko investigated all of it, and he denounced his former employers in no uncertain terms for their dirty deeds.
Death of a Dissident opens a window into the dark heart of the Putin Kremlin. With its strong-arm tactics, tight control over the media, and penetration of all levels of government, the old KGB is back with a vengeance. Sasha Litvinenko dedicated his life to exposing this truth. It took his diabolical murder for the world to listen. -
The Sword and the Shield
- By: Christopher Andrew
- Narrator: Simon Vance
- Length: 31 hours 50 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2005
- Language: English
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3.93(1400 ratings)
3.93(1400 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0031.95 USDBased on unprecedented access to a secret archive of intelligence, The Sword and the Shield presents by far the most complete picture we have ever had of the KGB and its operations in the United States and Europe, revealing for the first time theBased on unprecedented access to a secret archive of intelligence, The Sword and the Shield presents by far the most complete picture we have ever had of the KGB and its operations in the United States and Europe, revealing for the first time the full extent of its worldwide network.
Vasili Mitrokhin worked for almost thirty years in the foreign intelligence archives of the KGB. Mitrokhin spent over a decade making notes and transcripts of these highly classified files which, at enormous personal risk, he smuggled daily out of the archives and kept beneath his dacha floor. Now he has offered Christopher Andrew exclusive access to his archive. The picture that emerges in this sobering book will force us to acknowledge that there was indeed an enemy—and that he was very much in our midst.
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The Pity of War
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrator: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 21 hours 38 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: June 23, 2020
- Language: English
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3.86(2346 ratings)
3.86(2346 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDFrom a bestselling historian, a daringly revisionist history of World War IThe Pity of War makes a simple and provocative argument: the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England’s fault. According to Niall Ferguson, EnglandFrom a bestselling historian, a daringly revisionist history of World War I
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The Pity of War makes a simple and provocative argument: the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England’s fault. According to Niall Ferguson, England entered into war based on naive assumptions of German aims, thereby transforming a Continental conflict into a world war, which it then badly mishandled, necessitating American involvement. The war was not inevitable, Ferguson argues, but rather was the result of the mistaken decisions of individuals who would later claim to have been in the grip of huge impersonal forces.
That the war was wicked, horrific, and inhuman is memorialized in part by the poetry of men like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, but also by cold statistics. Indeed, more British soldiers were killed in the first day of the Battle of the Somme than Americans in the Vietnam War. And yet, as Ferguson writes, while the war itself was a disastrous folly, the great majority of men who fought it did so with little reluctance and with some enthusiasm. For anyone wanting to understand why wars are fought, why men are willing to fight them and why the world is as it is today, there is no sharper or more stimulating guide than Niall Ferguson’s The Pity of War. -
The Black Russian
- By: Vladimir Alexandrov
- Narrator: Peter Marinker
- Length: 10 hours 23 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2013
- Language: English
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3.79(370 ratings)
3.79(370 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDThe Black Russian is the incredible story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, born in 1872 to former slaves who became prosperous farmers in Mississippi. A rich white planter’s attempt to steal their land forced them to flee to Memphis, whereThe Black Russian is the incredible story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, born in 1872 to former slaves who became prosperous farmers in Mississippi.
A rich white planter’s attempt to steal their land forced them to flee to Memphis, where Frederick’s father was brutally murdered. After leaving the South and working as a waiter and valet in Chicago and Brooklyn, Frederick sought greater freedom in London, then crisscrossed Europe, and–in a highly unusual choice for a Black American at the time–went to Russia in 1899.
Because he found no color line there, Frederick made Moscow his home. He renamed himself Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas, married twice, acquired a mistress, and took Russian citizenship. Through his hard work, charm, and guile he became one of the city’s richest and most famous owners of variety theaters and restaurants.
But the Bolshevik Revolution ruined him, and he barely escaped with his life and family to Constantinople in 1919. Starting from scratch, he made a second fortune by opening celebrated nightclubs that introduced jazz to Turkey.
However, the long arm of American racism, the xenophobia of the new Turkish Republic, and Frederick’s own extravagance landed him in debtors’ prison. He died in Constantinople in 1928.
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October Fury
- By: Peter A. Huchthausen
- Narrator: Grover Gardner
- Length: 10 hours 46 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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3.76(92 ratings)
3.76(92 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0022.95 USDDrama on the high seas as the world holds its breath It was the most spectacular display of brinkmanship in the Cold War era. In October 1962, President Kennedy risked inciting a nuclear war to prevent the Soviet Union from establishing missileDrama on the high seas as the world holds its breath
It was the most spectacular display of brinkmanship in the Cold War era. In October 1962, President Kennedy risked inciting a nuclear war to prevent the Soviet Union from establishing missile bases in Cuba. The risk, however, was far greater than Kennedy realized.
October Fury uncovers startling new information about the Cuban missile crisis and the potentially calamitous confrontation between US Navy destroyers and Soviet submarines in the Atlantic. Peter Huchthausen, who served as a junior ensign aboard one of the destroyers, reveals that a single shot fired by any US warship could have led to an immediate nuclear response from the Soviet submarines.
This riveting account re-creates those desperate days of confrontation from both the American and Russian points of view and discloses detailed information about Soviet operational plans and the secret orders given to submarine commanders. It provides an engrossing, behind-the-scenes look at the technical and tactical functions of two great navies along with stunning portraits of the officers and sailors on both sides who were determined to do their duty even in the most extreme circumstances.
As absorbing and detailed as a Tom Clancy novel, this real-life suspense thriller is destined to become a classic of naval literature.
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The Cold War
- By: David Painter
- Narrator: David Painter
- Length: 7 hours 45 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: October 03, 2008
- Language: English
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3.65(50 ratings)
3.65(50 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDThe Cold War dominated international relations for forty-five years. It shaped the foreign policies of the United States and the Soviet Union and deeply affected their societies, domestic situations and their government institutions. Hardly any partThe Cold War dominated international relations for forty-five years. It shaped the foreign policies of the United States and the Soviet Union and deeply affected their societies, domestic situations and their government institutions. Hardly any part of the world escaped its influence. David Painter provides a compact and analytical study that examines the origins, course, and end of the Cold War. His overview is global in perspective, with an emphasis on the Third World as well as the contested regions of Asia and Central America, and a strong consideration of economic issues. He includes discussion of: the global distribution of power the arms race the world economy. The Cold War gives a concise, original and interdisciplinary introduction to this international state of affairs, covering the years between 1945 and 1990.
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Lenin on the Train
- By: Catherine Merridale
- Narrator: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 10 hours 2 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: March 28, 2017
- Language: English
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3.61(707 ratings)
3.61(707 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.009.99 USDIn April 1917, as Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication sent shockwaves across war-torn Europe, the future leader of the Bolshevik revolution, Vladimir Lenin, was far away, exiled in Zurich. To lead the revolt, Lenin needed to return to PetrogradIn April 1917, as Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication sent shockwaves across war-torn Europe, the future leader of the Bolshevik revolution, Vladimir Lenin, was far away, exiled in Zurich. To lead the revolt, Lenin needed to return to Petrograd immediately. But to get there, he would have to cross Germany, which meant accepting help from the deadliest of Russia’s adversaries and betraying his homeland. Bringing to life a world of counter-espionage, intrigue, wartime desperation, illicit finance, and misguided utopianism,Catherine Merridale provides a riveting account of this pivotal journey as well as the underground conspiracy and subterfuge that went into making it happen.
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The Polar Bear Expedition
- By: James Carl Nelson
- Narrator: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hours 7 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: February 19, 2019
- Language: English
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3.55(243 ratings)
3.55(243 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USDAn extraordinary lost chapter in the history of World War I: the story of America’s year-long invasion of Russia, in which a contingency of brave soldiers fought the Red Army and brutal conditions during the fall and winter of 1918-1919. InAn extraordinary lost chapter in the history of World War I: the story of America’s year-long invasion of Russia, in which a contingency of brave soldiers fought the Red Army and brutal conditions during the fall and winter of 1918-1919.
In August 1918, the 339th regiment of the U.S. Army–roughly 5,000 soldiers, most hailing from Michigan–sailed for Europe to fight in World War I. But instead of the Western Front, these troops were headed to Archangel, Russia, a vital port city 1,000 miles northeast of Moscow. There, in the frozen subarctic, amid the chaos of the Russian Civil War, one of the most extraordinary episodes of American history unfolded.
The American North Russia Expeditionary Force–self-dubbed “The Polar Bear Expedition”–was sent to fight the Red Army and aid anti-Bolshevik forces in hopes of re-opening the Eastern Front against Germany. On the 100th anniversary of the campaign, award-winning historian James Carl Nelson recreates this harrowing, dramatic military operation in which Americans and Bolsheviks fought a series of pitched battles throughout a punishing fall and winter.
As the Great War officially ended in November 1918, American troops continued to battle the Red Army and an equally formidable enemy, “General Winter.” Subzero temperatures made machine guns and light artillery inoperable. In the blinding ice and snow, sentries suffered from frostbite while guarding against nearly invisible Bolos camouflaged by their white uniforms. Before the Polar Bears’ withdrawal in July 1919, more than 200 perished from battle, accidents, and the Spanish flu.
But the Polar Bears’ story does not end there. Ten years later, a contingent of veterans returned to Russia to recover the remains of more than 100 of their fallen comrades and lay them to rest in Michigan, where a monument honoring their service still stands: a massive marble polar bear guarding a cross that marks the grave of a fallen soldier.
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The Interloper
- By: Peter Savodnik
- Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 8 hours 10 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2013
- Language: English
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3.46(132 ratings)
3.46(132 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDLee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 remains one of the most horrifying and hotly debated crimes in American history. Just as perplexing as the assassination is the assassin himself; the twenty-four-year-oldLee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 remains one of the most horrifying and hotly debated crimes in American history. Just as perplexing as the assassination is the assassin himself; the twenty-four-year-old Oswald’s hazy background and motivations–and his subsequent murder at the hands of Jack Ruby–make him an intriguing yet frustratingly enigmatic figure. Because Oswald briefly defected to the Soviet Union, some historians allege he was a Soviet agent. But as Peter Savodnik shows in The Interloper, Oswald’s time in the USSR reveals a stranger, more chilling story.
Oswald ventured to Russia at the age of nineteen, after a failed stint in the US Marine Corps and a childhood spent shuffling from address to address with his unstable, needy mother. Like many of his generation, Oswald struggled for a sense of belonging in postwar American society, which could be materialistic, atomized, and alienating. The Soviet Union, with its promise of collectivism and camaraderie, seemed to offer an alternative. While traveling in Europe, Oswald slipped across the Soviet border, soon settling in Minsk, where he worked at a radio and television factory. But Oswald quickly became just as disillusioned with his adopted country as he had been with the United States. He spoke very little Russian, had difficulty adapting to the culture of his new home, and found few trustworthy friends–indeed most, it became clear, were informing on him to the KGB. After nearly three years, Oswald returned to America feeling utterly defeated and more alone than ever, and as Savodnik shows, he began to look for an outlet for his frustration and rage.
Drawing on groundbreaking research, including interviews with Oswald’s friends and acquaintances in Russia and the United States, The Interloper brilliantly evokes the shattered psyche not just of Oswald himself but also of the era he so tragically defined.
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Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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