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The twentieth century cannot be properly understood unless we understand communism: its origins, growth, demise and legacy. This brief overview of the history of communism challenges us to think about its role in shaping the contemporary world. This book shows how the modern communist movement emerged out of radical millenarian movements of the Middle Ages and the English Civil War, becoming a mass movement of industrial society, seeking to overturn capitalism and replace it with a society of equality, justice, harmony and co-operation. It traces the growth of modern communism from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century to its position of global power at the end of the Second World War. Why did communism grow so quickly? Why did it spread to turn almost half of the world red by the mid-1970s? What impact did it have upon capitalism and capitalist society?
This new study draws upon a wide variety of sources East and West, textual and visual, newspaper and memoir, academic and popular to try and understand the reasons why Gorbachev remains such an enigmatic figure.
Mark Sandle is Lecturer in Russian and East European History at De Montfort University.; This book is intended for undergraduate courses on 20th century Soviet history/the Cold War/European history/Soviet studies/History of political thought/Marxism-Leninism. The Left.
Does the discipline of history need a reformation? How should Christian faith shape the ways historians do their work? This book, written for students, considers the "how" of doing history. The authors first examine the current "liturgies" of the historical profession and suggest that the discipline is in crisis. They argue for "re-formed" Christian practices and methodologies for history. The book asks important questions: why do we do history, and for whom? How should faith shape how we do our research and tell stories? What do we owe the dead? How should Christian historians practice "dangerous memory"? And how can Christian historians do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God? How might we rethink, reform, renew, reimagine, and re-practice the study of the past? Christian historians must be sentinels of hope against the world's forgetfulness, the authors argue, and this book offers some pathways for rethinking our practices from a Christian perspective.
The twentieth century cannot be properly understood unless we understand communism: its origins, growth, demise and legacy. This brief overview of the history of communism challenges us to think about its role in shaping the contemporary world. This book shows how the modern communist movement emerged out of radical millenarian movements of the Middle Ages and the English Civil War, becoming a mass movement of industrial society, seeking to overturn capitalism and replace it with a society of equality, justice, harmony and co-operation. It traces the growth of modern communism from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century to its position of global power at the end of the Second World War. Why did communism grow so quickly? Why did it spread to turn almost half of the world red by the mid-1970s? What impact did it have upon capitalism and capitalist society?
An acclaimed historian explores the dynamic history of the twentieth century Soviet Union In ten concise and compelling chapters, The Soviet Union covers the entire Soviet Union experience from the years 1904 to 1991 by putting the focus on three major themes: warfare, welfare, and empire. Throughout the book, Mark Edele—a noted expert on the topic—clearly demonstrates that the Soviet Union was more than simply "Russia." Instead, it was a multi-ethnic empire. The author explains that there were many incarnations of Soviet society throughout its turbulent history, each one a representative of Soviet socialism. The text covers a wide range of topics: The end Romanov empire; The outbreak of...
The definitive account of the historic diplomatic agreement that provided a blueprint for ending the Cold War The Helsinki Final Act was a watershed of the Cold War. Signed by thirty-five European and North American leaders at a summit in Finland in the summer of 1975, the document presented a vision for peace based on common principles and cooperation across the Iron Curtain. The Final Act is the first in-depth history of the diplomatic saga that produced this important agreement. This gripping book explains the Final Act's emergence from the parallel crises of the Soviet bloc and the West during the 1960s and the conflicting strategies that animated the negotiations. Drawing on research in eight countries and multiple languages, The Final Act shows how Helsinki provided a blueprint for ending the Cold War and building a new international order.
Why did the Soviet economic system fall apart? Did the economy simply overreach itself through military spending? Was it the centrally-planned character of Soviet socialism that was at fault? Or did a potentially viable mechanism come apart in Gorbachev's clumsy hands? Does its failure mean that true socialism is never economically viable? The economic dimension is at the very heart of the Russian story in the twentieth century. Economic issues were the cornerstone of soviet ideology and the soviet system, and economic issues brought the whole system crashing down in 1989-91. This book is a record of what happened, and it is also an analysis of the failure of Soviet economics as a concept.
Ukraine and Russia are today at opposite points of the political spectrum: Despite 300 years of contact with Russian authoritarian politics, Ukraine's post-independence period has been characterised by pluralism. To explain why and how Ukraine's and Russia's paths diverged, this monograph investigates the century-long and Soviet origins of regionalism in Ukraine, which the author argues are at the foundation of the modern Ukrainian institutional system. Drawing on unused archival material, the book re-examines the relationship between Moscow, Kyiv, and the Ukrainian regions in the period from spring 1917 to summer 1994 to demonstrate how interlinked political and economic incentives and cons...
Because the turbulent trajectory of Russia's foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union echoes previous moments of social and political transformation, history offers a special vantage point from which to judge the current course of events. In this book, a mix of leading historians and political scientists examines the foreign policy of contemporary Russia over four centuries of history. The authors explain the impact of empire and its loss, the interweaving of domestic and foreign impulses, long-standing approaches to national security, and the effect of globalization over time. Contributors focus on the underlying patterns that have marked Russian foreign policy and that persist...