This fascinating book concisely tells the story of the birth of three Baltic nation states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.Immediately following the end of World War I, amid the collapse of the German,
The familiar story of Soviet power in Cold War Eastern Europe focuses on political repression and military force. But in Empire of Friends, Rachel Applebaum shows how the Soviet Union simultaneously p
This book explores English trade to Russia in the first half of the seventeenth century. Meticulously reconstructing commercial activities, personnel, and day-to-day business strategies of the Muscovy
This book looks at critical regional topics, such as the conflicts in Moldova, Crimea, Georgia, and South Ossetia and compares the countries’ energy politics.
As the site of the assassination that triggered World War I and the place where the term "ethnic cleansing" was invented during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, Bosnia has become a global symbol of nat
This first of a two-part examination of the economic development of the Czech lands deals with the period from the mid-eighteenth century (the accession of Maria Theresa to the Austrian throne) to the
A dramatic account of a year of two revolutions in Russia, told through extracts from contemporary diaries, letters and memoirs and illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs. In the le
The first English-language book to document the men who emerged from the gulags to become Russia's much-feared crime class: the vory v zakone Mark Galeotti is the go-to expert on organized crime in Ru
In this international bestseller investigating the murder of the Russian Imperial Family, Helen Rappaport embarks on a quest to uncover the various plots and plans to save them, why they failed, and w
Seasoned Socialism considers the relationship between gender and food in late Soviet daily life. Political and economic conditions heavily influenced Soviet life and foodways during this period and an
After the guns fell silent in May 1945, Stalin installed secret police services in the satellite countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Trained by his NKVD—a predecessor of the KGB—offic
Seasoned Socialism considers the relationship between gender and food in late Soviet daily life. Political and economic conditions heavily influenced Soviet life and foodways during this period and an
Poland is a tenacious survivor-state: it was wiped off the map in 1795, resurrected after the First World War, apparently annihilated again in the Second World War, and reduced to satellite status of the Soviet Union after 1945. Yet it emerged in the vanguard of resistance to the USSR in the 1980s, albeit as a much more homogeneous entity than it had been in its multi-ethnic past. This book outlines Poland's turbulent and complex history, from its medieval Christian origins to the reassertion of that Christian and European heritage after forty-five years of communism. It describes Poland's transformation since 1989, and explains how Poland navigated its way into a new Commonwealth of Nations in the European Union. Recent years have witnessed significant changes within Poland, Eastern Europe and the wider world. This new edition reflects on these changes, and examines the current issues facing a Poland which some would accuse of being out of touch with 'European values'.
Queens of Poland are conspicuously absent from the study of European queenship—an absence which, together with early modern Poland’s marginal place in the historiography, results in a picture of Europ
Throughout the 'long 19th century', the Ottoman and Russian empires shared a goal of destroying one another. Yet, they also shared a similar vision for imperial state renewal, with the goal of avoidin
In Nature and the Iron Curtain, the authors contrast communist and capitalist countries with respect to their environmental politics in the context of the Cold War. Its chapters draw from archives acr
