Below I’ll give you my selections for the best Russia books by a few categories. I will cover these and other great books more in depth later.
- Lonely Planet Russia (Travel Guide) (2018)
- War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate (2019)
- DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Russia (2016)
- Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia (2017)
- Russia in the Twentieth Century (6th Edition) (2002)
- Russian History: A Captivating Guide to the History of Russia, Including Events Such as the Mongol Invasion, the Napoleonic Invasion, Reforms of Peter the Great, the Fall of the Soviet Union, and More (2018)
- Russia: A 1000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East (2013)
- Russia (Polity Histories) (2019)
- America, Russia and the Cold War 1945-2006 (2006)
- Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia (2003)
- The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (2018)
- Lonely Planet Pocket Moscow & St Petersburg (Travel Guide) (2018)
- Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (2015)
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Lonely Planet Russia (Travel Guide) (2018)
Lonely Planet: The world’s leading travel guide publisher is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Brush up on your Soviet and imperial history in Moscow and St Petersburg, explore European Russia and its gingerbread cottages and golden domes, or lose yourself in the wilds of Siberia and the east; all with your trusted travel companion.
War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate (2019)
America is in a new Cold War with Russia even more dangerous than the one the world barely survived in the twentieth century. The Soviet Union is gone, but the two nuclear superpowers are again locked in political and military confrontations, now from Ukraine to Syria. All of this is exacerbated by Washington’s war-like demonizing of the Kremlin leadership and by Russiagate’s unprecedented allegations.
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Russia (2016)
will lead you straight to the best attractions this diverse country has to offer.From the majestic cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg to the sandy beaches of the Baltic Coast and from the lush Volga Delta to the snowcapped Caucasus Mountains, explore the largest country in Europe. Experience the grandeur of the Kremlin, the Palace Embankment in St.
Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia (2017)
More than twenty years ago, the NPR correspondent Anne Garrels first visited Chelyabinsk, a gritty military-industrial center a thousand miles east of Moscow. The longtime home of the Soviet nuclear program, the Chelyabinsk region contained beautiful lakes, shuttered factories, mysterious closed cities, and some of the most polluted places on earth. Garrels’s goal was to chart the aftershocks of the U.S.S.R.’s collapse by traveling to Russia’s heartland.
Russia in the Twentieth Century (6th Edition) (2002)
Widely hailed as the best concise history of Soviet Russia, this book offers balanced coverage of Russia’s history—from last phase of the Tsarist regime to Vladamir Putin’s accession to power in 1999. The new edition of this book explores post-communist Russia with discussions of non-communist parties, the Greek Orthodox Church, Yelstin, Putin, as well as Russia’s development in the twenty-first century.
Russian History: A Captivating Guide to the History of Russia, Including Events Such as the Mongol Invasion, the Napoleonic Invasion, Reforms of Peter the Great, the Fall of the Soviet Union, and More (2018)
Russia, or the Russian Federation as it is officially known, is the world’s largest country and covers almost a sixth of the global landmass. The country is often associated with harsh climates and autocratic government. The shadow of communism and the Cold War continues to influence global attitudes towards Russia.
Russia: A 1000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East (2013)
As the BBC Moscow correspondent for almost twenty years, Sixsmith tells Russia’s full and fascinating story, from its foundation in the last years of the tenth century to the first years of the twenty-first, skillfully tracing the conundrums of modern Russia to their roots in its troubled past. Covering politics, music, literature and art, he explores the myths Russians have created from their history.
Russia (Polity Histories) (2019)
Over the past century alone, Russia has lived through great achievements and deepest misery; mass heroism and mass crime; over-blown ambition and near-hopeless despair – always emerging with its sovereignty and its fiercely independent spirit intact.
America, Russia and the Cold War 1945-2006 (2006)
Using extensive materials from both published and private sources, this concise text focuses on United States-Soviet diplomacy to explain the causes and consequences of the Cold War. It explores how the Cold War was shaped by domestic events in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union and presents a variety of other points of view on the conflict–Chinese, Latin American, European, and Vietnamese.
Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia (2003)
Beginning in the eighteenth century with the building of St. Petersburg and culminating with the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself–its character, spiritual essence, and destiny.
The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (2018)
WINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY’S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, BOSTON GLOBE, SEATTLE TIMES, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, NEWSWEEK, PASTE, and POP SUGAR Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen’s understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled.
Lonely Planet Pocket Moscow & St Petersburg (Travel Guide) (2018)
Lonely Planet: The world’s leading travel guide publisher is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Gawk at Red Square and St Basil’s Cathedral, lose yourself in a performance at the Bolshoi, or be dazzled by the wealth of imperial art at the State Hermitage Museum; all with your trusted travel companion.
Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (2015)
Professional killers with the souls of artists, would-be theater directors turned Kremlin puppet-masters, suicidal supermodels, Hell’s Angels who hallucinate themselves as holy warriors, and oligarch revolutionaries: welcome to the wild and bizarre heart of twenty-first-century Russia.
Best Russia Books That Will Hook You
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some russia books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
The Fate of the Russian Revolution "Lost Texts of Critical Marxism" v.I
Author(s): Sean Matgamna (editor)
ID: 2298572, Publisher: Phoenix Press, Year: June 1998, Size: 19 Mb, Format: pdf
Interpreting emotions in Russia and Eastern Europe
Author(s): edited by Mark D. Steinberg and Valeria Sobol.
ID: 2672754, Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press,, Year: c2011., Size: 629 Kb, Format: epub
The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia’s Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad
Author(s): Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogan
ID: 2438058, Publisher: PublicAffairs, Year: 8 Oct 2019, Size: 4 Mb, Format: epub
Please note that this booklist is not definite. Some books are truly hot items according to Chicago Tribune, others are composed by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant books you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.