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A review by chrisjp
Russia: A 1000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East by Martin Sixsmith
3.0
An interesting read that suffers for the same reason it excels - it's 1000 years of history in a relatively short read.
After reading Russia: A 100-Year Chronicle of the Wild East I was left with some greater understanding of Russia as a concept, as an idea, but (be it my fault or the book's) I couldn't tell you any of that history.
The general thrust of the narrative is that as a historically backward country/empire every modernisation/democratisation attempt ended in failure and a pivot back to authoritarianism, and that's sort of it. Yes it is obviously more complicated than that, but being a whistle-stop-tour of Russian history these complications aren't thoroughly explored, so instead I was left with an impression, an idea, rather than a history.
This is would be a great primer for a deep dive into Russian history, and I wish I had read it sooner (or at least before reading biographies of Putin), but to better understand Russia more reading will be required. Alternatively, if you want a broad stroke history perhaps this is the book to do it, but I can't help but feel focusing perhaps on just 500 years, or maybe the last couple of centuries, would be more effective.
After reading Russia: A 100-Year Chronicle of the Wild East I was left with some greater understanding of Russia as a concept, as an idea, but (be it my fault or the book's) I couldn't tell you any of that history.
The general thrust of the narrative is that as a historically backward country/empire every modernisation/democratisation attempt ended in failure and a pivot back to authoritarianism, and that's sort of it. Yes it is obviously more complicated than that, but being a whistle-stop-tour of Russian history these complications aren't thoroughly explored, so instead I was left with an impression, an idea, rather than a history.
This is would be a great primer for a deep dive into Russian history, and I wish I had read it sooner (or at least before reading biographies of Putin), but to better understand Russia more reading will be required. Alternatively, if you want a broad stroke history perhaps this is the book to do it, but I can't help but feel focusing perhaps on just 500 years, or maybe the last couple of centuries, would be more effective.