Overview

The Russian Revolution, 1905-1921 is a new history of Russia's revolutionary era as a story of experience-of people making sense of history as it unfolded in their own lives and as they took part in making history themselves. The major events, trends, and explanations, reaching from Bloody Sunday in 1905 to the final shots of the civil war in 1921, are viewed through the doubled perspective of the professional historian looking backward and the contemporary journalist reporting and interpreting history as it happened. The volume then turns toward particular places and people: city streets, peasant villages, the margins of empire (Central Asia, Ukraine, the Jewish Pale), women and men, workers and intellectuals, artists and activists, utopian visionaries, and discontents of all kinds. We spend time with the famous (Vladimir Lenin, Lev Trotsky, Alexandra Kollontai, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Isaac Babel) and with those whose names we don't even know. Key themes include difference and inequality (social, economic, gendered, ethnic), power and resistance, violence, and ideas about justice and freedom. Written especially for students and general readers, this history relies extensively on contemporary texts and voices in order to bring the past and its meanings to life. This is a history about dramatic and uncertain times and especially about the interpretations, values, emotions, desires, and disappointments that made history matter to those who lived it.

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9780199227624

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Reviews

draws in particular on contemporary journalism of the period, which provides some fascinating insights into attitudes and experiences of the revolution ... [he] provides some fascinating insight into issues of nationality, religion and ethnic identity during the revolutionary period. Steinberg also gives a very useful and detailed bibliography of English language publications about the Russian Revolution which forms a good guide to anyone wanting to read further. * James Eaden, International Socialism * Steinberg has offered an excellent introduction, vividly immersing the reader into revolutionary Russia, while offering an excellent overview of the state of research. The book closes with an excellent bibliography, while Steinberg's chapter notes contain advanced references, often including methodically relevant literature on the nineteenth century as well as the Soviet Union. The book as a whole, but especially the source-focused introduction and the thematic essays, can be unreservedly recommended. It will prove especially helpful both for undergraduate and graduate students as well as for the interested lay reader. * Daniel Schrader, H-Net * Steinberg has in the past produced valuable work on the voices of remarkable individuals, especially workers, in the revolutionary process, and the new book builds on this ... There are few accounts that so sharply bring to life a wide range of ethnic groups, especially Ukrainians, Jews and the peoples of Central Asia. Steinberg also examines the distinct experience of the peasantry and offers vignettes on the travails and rebellions of country-dwellers. The purpose is always to portray the entire population as having been active in its own local revolutions. * Robert Service, Times Literary Supplement *

Steinberg has in the past produced valuable work on the voices of remarkable individuals, especially workers, in the revolutionary process, and the new book builds on this ... There are few accounts that so sharply bring to life a wide range of ethnic groups, especially Ukrainians, Jews and the peoples of Central Asia. Steinberg also examines the distinct experience of the peasantry and offers vignettes on the travails and rebellions of country-dwellers. The purpose is always to portray the entire population as having been active in its own local revolutions. Robert Service, Times Literary Supplement

draws in particular on contemporary journalism of the period, which provides some fascinating insights into attitudes and experiences of the revolution ... [he] provides some fascinating insight into issues of nationality, religion and ethnic identity during the revolutionary period. Steinberg also gives a very useful and detailed bibliography of English language publications about the Russian Revolution which forms a good guide to anyone wanting to read further. * James Eaden, International Socialism * Steinberg has in the past produced valuable work on the voices of remarkable individuals, especially workers, in the revolutionary process, and the new book builds on this ... There are few accounts that so sharply bring to life a wide range of ethnic groups, especially Ukrainians, Jews and the peoples of Central Asia. Steinberg also examines the distinct experience of the peasantry and offers vignettes on the travails and rebellions of country-dwellers. The purpose is always to portray the entire population as having been active in its own local revolutions. * Robert Service, Times Literary Supplement *

Author Information

Mark D. Steinberg, a professor of history at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, is the author of many books and articles, including The Fall of the Romanovs: Political Dreams and Personal Struggles in a Time of Revolution (1995), Voices of Revolution, 1917 (2001), Proletarian Imagination: Self, Modernity, and the Sacred in Russia, 1910-1925 (2002), Petersburg Fin-de-Siecle (2011), and recent editions of the late Nicholas Riasanovsky's A History of Russia. His research and teaching interests include histories of cities, working-class culture, emotions, violence, revolutions, and utopia.

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