The Story of Russia Paperback – Import, 1 September 2022

In a srticter sense,it is not a history,but history of Russia summed up and told like a story..at best it's a good introduction to Russian history.As a story it is personalised and presented in author's understanding and opinions. For those who wants to understand present Russia without much discussion,it is the best book

It is difficult to cover a 1000-year history of a nation within 300 pages. The author does an excellent job of telling the story of Russia from the time of the Rurikids till the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He dives deep into the subject examining the different narratives of Russian historiography. The author will make you think and it is not a re-telling of well-known facts. This is a must-buy for anyone who loves to learn more about Russia's past.

Initially,after reading the description I was skeptical as to how a thousand years of history can be compressed into 300 pages. But the author has a done a wonderful job of that. And the writing is superb, delivering 'boring' history in an unputdownable book

I picked this up after finishing the same author’s book on Crimea, expecting a historical record of the same quality.Within the very first 50 pages the author’s bias seeps through. Whilst describing events which took place a 1000 years ago, he somehow manages to drag President Putin’s name into the discussion.The Russian point of view is always described as a myth. Including well documented examples such as the defeat of the Germans by Soviet armies in 1945.Disappointing and a waste of time and money.

"The Story Of Russia: 'An Excellent Short Study' " is exactly what you get. It doesn't get any better than this. I'm usually not happy with short histories, but this is different. Super quick read. Hard to put down. I thoroughly enjoyed every page of it.

“The Story of Russia” by Orlando Figes has a wealth of information about Russian history and recognizes that it is more complex than most realize; for example, the book contains a lot of maps, and you will need them to describe the provinces at different points throughout history. But, as is the case with historical summaries like this, the author can either err on the side of being too accessible for history buffs or too detailed for the casual reader: Figes chooses the latter, and you will learn something.I am reasonably well-informed, but the 1500s are not my strong suit. Nevertheless, hearing about a period in which leaders and the clergy worked in unison, and tsars quoted the bible to rationalize their crimes was sobering. The sheer volume of religious conflicts and wars was shocking. In the 1600s, when the West began to acknowledge that Russia had power, many deaths occurred, leaving citizens to know nothing but that life.Russia had the unique position of affecting European and Asian life. As they attempted to expand materialistically, they embraced foreigners but banished Jews in the late 1700s, possibly changing the sentiments of Europe. When culture and religious wars heat up in the 1850s, Figes achieves the tricky balance of respecting the Russian viewpoint while still painting a picture of revolution and violence.If I were to judge public sentimentality by my social media feed, people are fascinated by the philosophy of Marxism but hate Communism. But, of course, you can do both and remain fascinated by the events that led to Lenin’s ascent to power. I had no idea that so many different groups opposed each other in the time of World War I and the Russian Revolution. Their methods of propaganda do not differ much from today’s.My biggest weakness when posting these on social media is obsessing over what my conservative and liberal friends will think. Fear not. Figes views Communism as a fast-rising phenomenon and goes into great detail as to how it failed. I am amazed by how much I did not know about Lenin and Stalin. If anything, it created empathy in me for the Russian people, as so many lived under poor leadership without any knowledge or capacity to fix it.

Absolument délicieux! Un chef-d'oeuvre de vulgarisation, pour un sujet brûlant d'actualité, et d'une infinie complexité tant historique que politique. Un MUST!

I love books like this as they bring together so many different aspects that as you read it you go, "I want to know more about that," and thats its real value.At one level seeing that Russia is the same thing happening over and over again and that what is happening with Putin has happened before, sort of explains and gives a reason why it is. But the main thing for me was, here's a massive topic, with characters and people and wars and famine and revolution and conquest and defeats that made me want to read into each one of those topics as so that I could learn some more.Really excellent read.

"Story of Russia" is a compelling journey throughout the ages and main events occurred in russian history, whose unfolding bears the utmost importance not only for the occurrence itself but for the significance they have been laden with by both the people and the ruling elites that alternated.The span of time runs from the early period of Kievan Rus to modern -day Russian Federation, obviously entailing the tsarist regime to the modern declination of "sovereign democracy" contrived by Putin (whose figure in more than one way, like he also calls himself, can be compared to a tsar).The main purpose of the author is to describe, along with historical events, how they became the landmarks of the russian mythology which, throughout the ages, shaped various and fundamental concepts that are vehemently brought about by the Putin's regime since the 2007 Munich speech and in the current days war propaganda.Some of these concepts are: the "holy tsar", "tsar as a holy father for the people", "autocracy as the only political way for Russia", "the third Rome", "Russia as saviour of Europe", "pan-slavism", "russian soul", "russian world", "selfless sacrifice of the russian people for the benefit of the State", "russian sacred mission to unite all the orthodox christianity", "the sacred mission of the russian empire", "disregard for the ungrateful West", "fear and mistrust for the evil and deceitful the West" and many others.I am not versed in russian history so I cannot assess the content thoroughly, yet I found it absolutely insightful and informative, along with an overwhelmingly catchy style of writing that kept me turning page after page as if I was reading a novel.In conclusion, I highly recommend reading this brief "excellent study" in russian history, in as much it sheds a light on the myths and mindset of a populace which, unfortunately, is either disregarded and misunderstood by quick asserters of it being "partners in crime" or swindled by its ruling elites.