What caused the Russian Revolution? Did it succeed or fail? Do we still live with its consequences? This book deals with these questions.

A 2022 BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: Sunday Times * Irish Times * Spectator * Financial Times * Telegraph * Aspects of History

'The history book you need if you want to understand modern Russia' ANNE APPLEBAUM

'A magnificent, magisterial thousand year history of Russia . . . by one of the masters of Russian scholarship' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

'A great historian at the peak of his powers' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

'[An] excellent short study' MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES

'If you really want to understand Putin'...

Opening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, this book follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then degenerates into violence and dictatorship.