Russia and the Russians - Geoffrey A Hosking

From the Carpathians in the west to the Greater Khingan range in the east, a huge, flat expanse dominates the Eurasian continent. Here, over more than a thousand years, the history and destiny of Russia have unfolded. In a sweeping narrative, one of the English-speaking world's leading historians of Russia follows this story from the first emergence of the Slavs in the historical record in the 6th century to the Russians' persistent appearances in today's headlines. Hosking's is a monumental story of competing legacies, of an enormous power uneasily balanced between the ideas and realities of Asian empire, European culture and Byzantine religion; of a constantly shifting identity, from Kievan Rus to Muscovy to Russian Empire to Soviet Union to Russian Federation, and of tsars and leaders struggling over the centuries to articulate that identity.;With particular attention to non-Russian regions and ethnic groups, and to Russia's relations with neighbouring polities, Hosking lays out the links between political, economic, social and cultural phenomena that have made Russia a world at once familiar and mysterious to Western observers. In a clear and engaging style, he conducts us through the Mongol invasions, the rise of autocracy, the reigns of Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, the struggle against Napoleon, the emancipation of the serfs, the Crimean War, the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalin's reign of terror, the two world wars, the end of the USSR and today's war against Chechnya. Hosking's history is shot through with the understanding that becoming an empire has prevented Russia from becoming a nation and has perpetuated earlier, more personal forms of power-broking. This book is the most penetrating and comprehensive account yet of what such a legacy has meant - to Russia, and to the world.