Famine in European History

Famine in European History
Author: Guido Alfani
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2017-08-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107179939

The first systematic study of famine in all parts of Europe from the Middle Ages to present. It compares the characteristics, consequences and causes of famine in regional case studies by leading experts to form a comprehensive picture of when and why food security across the continent became a critical issue.

Economy and Society in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1860–1930

Economy and Society in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1860–1930
Author: Linda Edmondson
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 304
Release: 1992-11-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1349224332

This is a volume of essays exploring important themes in the economic and social history of Russia and the Soviet Union during the critical period between 1860 and 1930. It covers developments in agriculture, industry, trade, economic theory, defence policy and the social impact of revolution. The essays are written by well-established specialists in Russian and Soviet economic and social history and are intended as a tribute to the work of the highly-esteemed economic historian Olga Crisp.

Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union

Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union
Author: Felix Wemheuer
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2014-06-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 030020678X

During the twentieth century, 80 percent of all famine victims worldwide died in China and the Soviet Union. In this rigorous and thoughtful study, Felix Wemheuer analyzes the historical and political roots of these socialist-era famines, in which overambitious industrial programs endorsed by Stalin and Mao Zedong created greater disasters than those suffered under prerevolutionary regimes. Focusing on famine as a political tool, Wemheuer systematically exposes how conflicts about food among peasants, urban populations, and the socialist state resulted in the starvation death of millions. A major contribution to Chinese and Soviet history, this provocative analysis examines the long-term effects of the great famines on the relationship between the state and its citizens and argues that the lessons governments learned from the catastrophes enabled them to overcome famine in their later decades of rule.

A People's Tragedy

A People's Tragedy
Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Bodley Head Childrens
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Russia
ISBN: 9781847922915

Vast in scope, based on exhaustive original research, and written with passion, narrative skill and human sympathy, this book offers an account of the Russian Revolution for a new generation.

Overtaken by the Night

Overtaken by the Night
Author: Richard Robbins
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Total Pages: 537
Release: 2018-01-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 0822983222

Vladimir Fedorovich Dzhunkovsky was a witness to Russia's unfolding tragedy—from Tsar Alexander II's Great Reforms, through world war, revolution, the rise of a new regime, and finally, his country's descent into terror under Stalin. But Dzhunkovsky was not just a passive observer—he was an active participant in his troubled and turbulent times, often struggling against the tide. In the centennial of the Russian revolution, his story takes on special significance. Highly readable, Overtaken by the Night captivates on many levels. It is a gripping biography of a man of many faces, a behind-the-curtain look at the inner workings of Russian politics at its highest levels, and also an engrossing account of ordinary Russians engulfed by swiftly moving political and social currents. Dzhunkovsky served as a confidant in the tsar's imperial court,and as governor in Moscow province during and after the 1905 revolution. In 1913, he became the empire's security chief, determined to reform the practices of the dreaded tsarist political police, the Okhrana. Dismissed from office for daring to investigate and warn Tsar Nicholas about Rasputin, his path led him into combat on the battlefields of the First World War. A natural leader of men, he held his units together even as revolution spilled into the trenches. Arrested as a counterrevolutionary in 1918 and imprisoned until 1921, Dzhunkovsky avoided execution thanks to an outpouring of public support and his reputation for treating revolutionaries with fairness and dignity. Although later he consulted for the Stalinist secret police, he was tried and executed in 1938 as an enemy of the people. Based on Dzhunkovsky's detailed memoirs and extensive archival research, Overtaken by the Night paints a fascinating picture of an important figure. Dzhunkovsky's incredible life reveals much about a long and crucial period in Russian history. It is a story of Russia in revolution reminiscent of the fictional Doctor Zhivago, but perhaps even more extraordinary for being true.

Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991

Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991
Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0805095985

From the author of A People's Tragedy, an original reading of the Russian Revolution, examining it not as a single event but as a hundred-year cycle of violence in pursuit of utopian dreams In this elegant and incisive account, Orlando Figes offers an illuminating new perspective on the Russian Revolution. While other historians have focused their examinations on the cataclysmic years immediately before and after 1917, Figes shows how the revolution, while it changed in form and character, nevertheless retained the same idealistic goals throughout, from its origins in the famine crisis of 1891 until its end with the collapse of the communist Soviet regime in 1991. Figes traces three generational phases: Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who set the pattern of destruction and renewal until their demise in the terror of the 1930s; the Stalinist generation, promoted from the lower classes, who created the lasting structures of the Soviet regime and consolidated its legitimacy through victory in war; and the generation of 1956, shaped by the revelations of Stalin's crimes and committed to "making the Revolution work" to remedy economic decline and mass disaffection. Until the very end of the Soviet system, its leaders believed they were carrying out the revolution Lenin had begun. With the authority and distinctive style that have marked his magisterial histories, Figes delivers an accessible and paradigm-shifting reconsideration of one of the defining events of the twentieth century.

Bankers and Bolsheviks

Bankers and Bolsheviks
Author: Hassan Malik
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2020-05-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691202222

Following an unprecedented economic boom fed by foreign investment, the Russian Revolution triggered the worst sovereign default in history. Bankers and Bolsheviks tells the dramatic story of this boom and bust, chronicling the forgotten experiences of leading financiers of the age. Shedding critical new light on the decision making of the powerful personalities who acted as the gatekeepers of international finance, Hassan Malik narrates how they channeled foreign capital into Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While economists have long relied on quantitative analysis to grapple with questions relating to the drivers of cross-border capital flows, Malik adopts a historical approach, drawing on banking and government archives in four countries. The book provides rare insights into the thinking of influential figures in world finance as they sought to navigate one of the most challenging and lucrative markets of the first modern age of globalization. Bankers and Bolsheviks reveals how a complex web of factors--from government interventions to competitive dynamics and cultural influences - drove a large inflow of capital during this tumultuous period in world history. This gripping book demonstrates how the realms of finance and politics - of bankers and Bolsheviks - grew increasingly intertwined, and how investing in Russia became a political act with unforeseen repercussions.

Russia Then and Now 1892-1917

Russia Then and Now 1892-1917
Author: Francis Brewster Reeves
Publisher: Legare Street Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-07-18
Genre:
ISBN: 9781022028739

A sweeping survey of the political, social and economic changes that transformed Russia in the years leading up to the Revolution of 1917, written by an accomplished historian. Reeves combines detailed analysis with vivid storytelling to bring to life the key players and events that shaped one of the most tumultuous periods in Russian history. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.