Book Reviews
Khrushchev’s Cold Summer
By Sean at 30 December, 2009, 11:00 am
Studies of the Soviet gulag encompass a cottage industry of its own in Russian historiography. Since 1991, a torrent of studies have been published examining the gulag’s construction, management, memory, and legacy. Few, however, have delved into how Soviet citizens reacted to the return of over 4 million prisoners from labor camps and colonies to society between 1953 and 1958. It is for this reason that Miriam Dobson’s Khrushchev’s Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime, and the Fate of Reform After Stalin is a welcomed and refreshing edition to so-called “Gulag Studies.”
Read More >>Dissecting Kirov’s Murder
By Sean at 15 December, 2009, 11:02 am
Two weeks ago, I did a post on 75 years since the Kirov law. I was happy to find that the New Times published an interview with Matthew Lenoe whose forthcoming book, Kirov’s Murder and Soviet History, is a hefty reexamination of the famous assassination. Below is a translation I did of the interview.
A Historical Roadtrip in the Soviet Car
By Sean at 3 August, 2009, 12:05 pm
Lewis Siegelbaum has a cover interview with Rorotoko for his recent book Cars for Comrades. I didn’t know about this interview until I received an email from Cornell University Press’ Publicity Manager. I should note, however, posting a blurb about Siegelbaum’s interview isn’t purely out of disinterest. He’s on my dissertation committee and bringing attention [...]
Read More >>Memorializing Market Bolshevism
By Sean at 18 January, 2009, 11:07 am
David Woodruff gives a brutal assessment of Anders Aslund’s How Capitalism Was Built in the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of the New Left Review. It’s unfortunate that the review is only accessible to subscribers.
Readers should know Aslund’s own personal contribution to the building of Russian capitalism well. In the 1990s, he was part of the Jeffrey [...]
Stalin’s Iron Fist
By Sean at 1 November, 2008, 9:40 am
I usually don’t cheerlead the work my adviser and friend, J. Arch Getty, but if you have any interest in his new book Stalin’s Iron Fist, read Simon Sebag Montefiore’s review in the Telegraph. If you’re not familiar Getty’s work, over the last two decades he has single handedly rewritten the history of the Terror [...]
Read More >>Blackening the White Paper
By Sean at 28 May, 2008, 7:22 am
My new eXile article, Nemtsov’s White Paper: Bombshell or Dud?, is now online. Here is an excerpt:
Lilia Shevtsova, a fellow at Moscow’s Carnegie Center, called it a “bomb, which anywhere but in Russia would cause the country to collapse.” Writing in the New York Review of Books, Amy Knight called it “a devastating picture [...]
