New Books in Russian and Eurasian Studies
New Books Network
Interviews with Scholars of Russia and Eurasia about their New BooksSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
Episodes
Mentioned books
Sep 2, 2013 • 54min
Wendy Z. Goldman, “Inventing the Enemy: Denunciation and Terror in Stalin’s Russia” (Cambridge UP, 2011)
A period of mass repression and terror swept through the Soviet Union between the years of 1936-39. Following the shocking Kirov assassination and show trials of alleged factory saboteurs, paranoia gripped the nation and culminated in the execution and imprisonment of millions of Soviet citizens. The state’s and Stalin’s role... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
Aug 22, 2013 • 47min
Donald J. Raleigh, “Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia’s Cold War Generation” (Oxford UP, 2012)
The Cold War was experienced by millions around the world. For many, Soviets were the enemies, and nuclear war the threat. For millions more, however, the Cold War enemies and threats were different. In Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia’s Cold War Generation (Oxford University Press, 2012), historian Donald... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
Jul 10, 2013 • 1h 2min
John Earl Haynes, et al., “Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America” (Yale UP, 2009)
For decades, the American Right and Left argued about the degree to which the KGB infiltrated the U.S. political and scientific establishment. The Right said “A lot”; the Left said “Much less than you think.” Both sides did a lot of finger-pointing and, sadly, slandering. Things got very ugly. At... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
May 27, 2013 • 57min
Ben Judah, “Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin” (Yale UP, 2013)
Debates about the nature of Putin’s rule abound. Is Putin a hard fisted authoritarian? Is he the master of the power vertical? An arbiter of competing clans? Or something else? In his Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin (Yale University Press, 2013), Ben... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
Apr 10, 2013 • 1h
Barbara Engel, “Breaking the Ties that Bound: The Politics of Marital Strife in Late Imperial Russia” (Cornell UP, 2011)
Divorce was virtually impossible in Imperial Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church monopolized matrimony, and it rarely granted divorce except in extraordinary cases of adultery, abandonment, sexual impotence, or exile. Marriage as an unbreakable religious sacrament still held. Yet, by the end of the nineteenth century, Russian perceived a “crisis of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
Apr 3, 2013 • 57min
Vladimir Alexandrov, “The Black Russian” (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013)
Vladimir Alexandrov‘s new book The Black Russian (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013) tells the epic and often tragic story of Fredrick Bruce Thomas, an African American born to recently freed slaves, who would go on to make a fortune in Russia as a club owner and entrepreneur. Mr. Thomas was a... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
Mar 5, 2013 • 1h
Eric Lohr, “Russian Citizenship: From Empire to Soviet Union” (Harvard UP, 2012)
Russians have a reputation for xenophobia, that is, it’s said they don’t much like foreigners. According to Eric Lohr‘s new book, Russian Citizenship: From Empire to Soviet Union (Harvard University Press, 2012), this reputation is at once deserved and undeserved. It’s true that at various moments in Russian history, foreigners... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
Feb 15, 2013 • 1h 9min
Louis Menashe, “Moscow Believes in Tears: Russians and Their Movies” (New Academia, 2010)
Did you see one of Eisenstein’s masterpieces “The Battleship Potemkin” and “Alexander Nevsky” in a Russian or Soviet history class? Were you captivated by Tarkovsky’s brooding long shots in movies such as “Solaris” and “Stalker“? Did you seek out Pichul’s “Little Vera” in the theater to get a glimpse of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
Jan 11, 2013 • 1h 3min
William Risch, “The Ukrainian West: Culture and the Fate of Empire in Soviet Lviv” (Harvard UP, 2011)
During the Cold War few Westerners gave much thought to Western Ukraine, and its main city, Lviv. It was what happened in Moscow and St. Petersburg that really mattered, and so if one looked on a map one found city as Lvov, the Russian transliteration, rather than the Ukrainian that... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
Dec 21, 2012 • 56min
Meredith Roman, “Opposing Jim Crow: African Americans and the Soviet Indictment of US Racism, 1928-1937” (University of Nebraska Press, 2012)
In December 1958, US Senator Hubert H. Humphery recalled that at some point during an eight hour meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Premier “tore off on a whole long lecture” that the Senator wished he could remember because it was “the best speech I could ever make in my... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
