Reddit mentions: The best russian history books

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1. Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia

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Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia
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3. The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way

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The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way
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4. The Russian Revolution

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The Russian Revolution
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5. October: The Story of the Russian Revolution

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6. The Jewish Century

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8. Winter Is Coming

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9. The Soviet Space Race with Apollo

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11. Russia and the Russians: A History

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12. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (In-Formation)

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14. Making Jews Modern: The Yiddish and Ladino Press in the Russian and Ottoman Empires (The Modern Jewish Experience)

Making Jews Modern: The Yiddish and Ladino Press in the Russian and Ottoman Empires (The Modern Jewish Experience)
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16. Ibn Fadlan's Journey to Russia: A Tenth-Century Traveler from Baghad to the Volga River

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18. The Soviet Experiment: Russia, The USSR, and the Successor States

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19. Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire

SOVIET EMPIRELENIN'S TOMB
Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
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20. Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism

Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism
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🎓 Reddit experts on russian history books

The comments and opinions expressed on this page are written exclusively by redditors. To provide you with the most relevant data, we sourced opinions from the most knowledgeable Reddit users based the total number of upvotes and downvotes received across comments on subreddits where russian history books are discussed. For your reference and for the sake of transparency, here are the specialists whose opinions mattered the most in our ranking.
Total score: 2,104
Number of comments: 6
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 250
Number of comments: 36
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Total score: 89
Number of comments: 6
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Total score: 35
Number of comments: 16
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Total score: 20
Number of comments: 5
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Total score: 13
Number of comments: 6
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Total score: 10
Number of comments: 8
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Number of comments: 8
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Total score: 7
Number of comments: 15
Relevant subreddits: 5
Total score: 3
Number of comments: 4
Relevant subreddits: 3

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Top Reddit comments about Russian History:

u/ProfessorDingus · 5 pointsr/geopolitics

>Why?

To survive and continue an existence that provides some measure of certainty. The Chinese hukou system limits the ability of Chinese citizens to migrate to cities with more economic opportunity by barring people from legally residing, receiving social services (education, health, etc.), or working outside of their hukou. As many low-skilled Chinese workers are not allowed to live and work in economically vibrant areas such as the Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen (the Tier 1 cities), their alternatives are to move to a lower tier city/province that may not provide meaningful employment year-round, wither in their current position, or move somewhere with economic opportunity (the U.S., Europe, overseas in Asia, in neighboring Asian countries). If they choose the latter, they are often willing to illegally immigrate.

We are unlikely to see tens of thousands of Chinese pouring across the Russian border for work. Indeed, many who work there now are likely nott planning to do so permanently. However, this doesn't rule out the possibility of long-term demographic shifts in Russia's Far East.

>but I've never seen any numbers

I can think of two reasons, though I'm sure there could be more:

  • The numbers are published in Chinese and Russian and researchers in the Anglosphere may not publish this in readily available format (namely, in English) outside of their academic works. People who might be otherwise interested in such a topic- policymakers, researchers, data collectors at an international organization, redditors on a geopolitics subreddit, ideologues- do not have the time, knowledge, or motivation to translate said numbers and have an easily searchable public place for such numbers.

  • Both the Russian and Chinese governments are mutually interested in not drawing attention to the numbers. Like most governments in power, the Russian government (or rather, Vladimir Putin's United Russia) advertises its legitimacy to rule in a flawed democracy via economic opportunity and social stability. Having Chinese immigrants or migrant workers displace Russian workers in struggling rural areas of the Russian Far East (David Remnick's book Lenin's Tomb has a chapter that highlights the issues that plague the Russian Far East) undermines the promise of economic opportunity for Russian citizens of all ethnic groups and their status within society. The Chinese Communist Party also advertises its own legitimacy via economic opportunity and social stability, and having its citizens go to other states for employment in agriculture or manufacturing would be seen as indicative of the CCP's inability to fully provide that- lending ammunition for opposition from party "liberals" and outsiders alike. Additionally, there have been tensions regarding this issue since the dissolution of the USSR. There is no reason to disrupt recent Sino-Russian cooperation, particularly when there are no domestic incentives to push the issue.


    >China itself is big enough for all Chinese people

    China's seaboard (where most of its economic activity lies) is incredibly dense in terms of population. The interior of China has far less economic activity than the seaboard, and is likely the source of many of the unemployed. The hukou system is partially designed to encourage internal migration towards non-tier 1 cities, and has been notably accompanied by the infamous construction sprees by local municipalities that led to the phenomenon known as "ghost cities". Such sprees did not always end in ghost cities as documented by Western media, but were nonetheless an issue.

    >Russia isn't that much richer than China

    True, but it doesn't need to be rich so much as appear to be better than the alternatives. I'd imagine most Chinese immigrants/migrant workers to Russia were displaced from Chinese agricultural communities and would prefer that sort of lifestyle to industrial work in a non-tier 1 city that is likely facing layoffs due to China's supply-side & state-owned enterprise (SoE) reforms.

    >prospects of Chinese immigrant in Russia without knowing the language and local customs aren't good either

    Chinese immigrants/migrant workers have interacted with Russians in the area for centuries (the RAND article I listed earlier describes this). Even if you only look at the most modern manifestations of this relationship, Chinese workers have been operating in the Russian Far East since around 1993. While they're unlikely to meaningfully advance in the social structure, they have shown the capability to survive.

    >I can imagine that young Chinese people dream about moving to rich Chinese cities, not to Russia.

    If they're uneducated, they are often unable to move to rich Chinese cities. Why not move somewhere that is somewhat familiar with Chinese migrant workers/immigrants?
u/ENovi · 4 pointsr/Christianity

I would be happy to! Christ the Conqueror of Hell does a fantastic job of explaining the Orthodox view on Hell. This book does a fantastic job of introducing Orthodoxy to Protestant and Catholic Christians. In fact, it was written by a Protestant. Because of that, he does a great job of explaining some unfamiliar terms or practices to his audience since he is coming from the same place. It's essentially a very well educated Western Christian explaining the Eastern Church to other Western Christians.

I can't recommend this book enough. It's an anonymous story describing the journey of a Russian Christian and his journey through the faith. It's really uplifting and surprisingly entertaining for a book written in 18th century Russia.

Finally, if you're looking for something deep, I would recommend this one. Vladimir Lossky was a brilliant Orthodox theologian who focused on the "mystical" side of Christianity vs. the more "scholastic" approach of the West. Really, anything by him is worth your time.

Let me know if these are what you're working for. If not, I may have a few more books I can recommend. I personally think these are a great place to start.

u/rdevitt21 · 3 pointsr/spaceflight

Red Moon Rising by Brzezinski is an engaging, novel-like quick read that dramatizes and summarizes the early space race. Side-by-side history of early US and Soviet space rocketry. Great stuff on the inheritance of the V-2 tech after WWII.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Moon-Rising-Sputnik-Rivalries/dp/080508858X

Korolev by James Harford is about the man without whom the space race wouldn’t have happened. A bit dry (academic) at times, but a well researched book with lots of cool details from first-hand interviews. Korolev was a fascinating guy. An under-appreciated giant of the 20th century.
https://www.amazon.com/Korolev-Masterminded-Soviet-Drive-America/dp/0471327212

Starman by Pierce and Bizony on the meteoric rise and end of Yuri Gagarin. Very engaging. Read for the story of Komarov!
https://www.amazon.com/Starman-Truth-Behind-Legend-Gagarin-ebook/dp/B0052LUE80

Into That Silent Sea/In the Shadow of the Moon by French and Burgess. Another side-by-side. Great history from pre-Sputnik to Apollo, the moon, beyond. Lots of good stuff about individuals on both sides.
https://www.amazon.com/Into-That-Silent-Sea-Trailblazers/dp/080322639X/

Russian Wikipedia. Seriously, run it through Google’s page translate feature, keep a tab open for google translate so you can copy-paste search terms in Russian. Lots of extra info on RU Wikipedia vs EN Wikipedia.

Kamanin’s Diaries. Kamanin was a Red Army General that got assigned as personnel handler for the Cosmonauts. His diaries of the early days are probably the best primary source for and industry forged in a time of uber-secrecy. I haven’t found a full English translation.

English Summaries:
http://www.astronautix.com/k/kamanindiaries.html

Russian Language:
http://militera.lib.ru/db/kamanin_np/index.html



u/CptBuck · 3 pointsr/AskHistorians

I'll be quite frank in saying that I haven't read Ibn Fadlan in either the original or in translation, but after looking into the question, as is so often true of Arabic texts, you don't have a lot of choices.

Unless you speak something other than English, there are basically three translations in print:

https://www.amazon.com/Ibn-Fadlan-Land-Darkness-Travellers/dp/0140455078/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1503110083&sr=1-1&keywords=ibn+fadlan

and:

https://www.amazon.com/Ibn-Fadlans-Journey-Russia-Tenth-Century/dp/155876366X

and:

https://nyupress.org/books/9781479899890/

In his introduction to the last one, which is also the most recent chronologically published, Montgomery notes in regard to the other two translations:

> My translation aspires to
lucidity and legibility. James E. McKeithen’s excellent PhD thesis
(Indiana University, 1979) will satisfy the reader in search of a crib
of the Arabic. There are two other translations into English, by
Richard N. Frye (2005) and by the late Paul Lunde and Caroline
Stone (2012). They are both admirable: Frye’s is very useful for the
studies he provides alongside the translation, and Lunde and Stone
have produced a nicely readable version of the work. Both, however,
effectively promote a version of Ibn Faḍlān’s text dominated
by Yāqūt’s quotations.

Which is to say the commentary of the compiler from which Ibn Fadlan's text is recorded (i.e. we don't actually have Ibn Fadlan's tex to translate from.)

Montgomery's introduction is worth reading in full as I think it will explain some of the problems in preparing a translation from such a source:

https://nyupress.org/webchapters/Montgomery_Mission_Introduction.pdf

In particular, Montgomery is trying to shave off the outside commentary, as a result his work is considerably shorter.

Frankly, to a lay reader, I'm not sure it would make much of a difference.

If you have any other languages, particularly German, there may be other translations that are worthwhile.

u/[deleted] · 5 pointsr/Christianity

The Eastern Orthodox Church has a long tradition of Hesychasm which includes all kinds of meditation, and watchfulness.

The Philokalia is a good starter book on guarding the heart and other nuggets of spiritual wisdom. [Here is an annotated and explained version.] (http://www.amazon.com/Philokalia-Christian-Spiritual-SkyLight-Illuminations/dp/1594731039/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369060203&sr=1-1&keywords=Philokalia%E2%80%94The+Eastern+Christian+Spiritual+Texts%3A+Selections+Annotated+%26+Explained)It is a great starter book. Its not the full Philokalia, but its really nice because the full edition has a few editions and pretty expensive.

Also check out The Way of a Pilgrim. Its a Russian spiritual classic about a man who hears someone teach on praying with out ceasing(1Thess 5:17), and wonders how a person can pray continually. Don't people have to eat and sleep? he goes on a journey and learns about Prayer of the Heart, and most specifically the Jesus Prayer. And other forms of Hesychasm.

If you have anymore questions ask away. And visit r/OrthodoxChristianity if you have any specific questions.

edit: I'd also suggest talking to a priest, or monk. Most of these practices are meant to be over seen by an older, more experienced spiritual father. It helps you keep from over doing it, or falling into some sort of delusion.

u/florinandrei · 12 pointsr/technology

I understand the sentiment, and I've been in very demanding jobs too, and if it's not rewarding in a way that matters to you then it sucks. Believe me, I know.

But look at it this way: if you want a cushy job, stay with the average employer. If you want to be part of the new chapter in space exploration, be prepared to do what the best and the brightest in that field do.

Conquering space is not gonna happen on a 9 to 5 schedule. But being an average citizen and watching that conquest on Youtube is totally doable within a lifestyle supported by a 9 to 5 kind of job.

Make your choice and accept the consequences.

---

P.S.:

Read the biography of Sergey Korolev, the "russian Elon Musk" back in the '50s and '60s. He had a very similar leadership style as Elon's and a great deal of his genius too. His people were working round the clock to shoot Sputnik 1 up into orbit; not because the Kremlin was demanding it, but because they truly believed they were writing history - which they definitely were.

Great achievements require great efforts.

u/bg478 · 2 pointsr/Judaism

If you're looking for something a little more niche I could recommend Making Jews Modern by Stein. It's about the advent of Yiddish and Ladino media culture in late 19th-early 20th century Europe. There's also Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century by Stampfer it's pretty academic and detailed but it's a really interesting read on the development of the modern yeshiva system. There's the multi-volume Polin Studies in Polish Jewry series which is really great and covers practically every topic there is on the subject. Most of them can be found on Amazon as well. The Litvaks by Levin is a great work that covers the extensive history of Lithuanian Jewry with particular focus on the 18th century onward. Also check out practically any of the books available in the Yiddish Book Center's online store.

u/jdryan08 · 30 pointsr/AskHistorians

Fair enough, the printing press surely afforded a special sort of command over knowledge within Europe, and it did take a little while for it's use to become prevalent in the Middle East.

Although, I would be wary of making this a complete answer. From my understanding (and this is stretching my own historical knowledge, so feel free to correct me), much of the printing production was still limited to religious texts, literacy was incredibly low, and the ability to print materials was largely limited to a very wealthy elite. It would seem to me that until printing became a true mass phenomena that its utility for knowledge transmission would not have surpassed oral or handwritten communication.

Naturally, there were innovations in Europe that occurred there for specific reasons, but that doesn't mean there weren't significant networks of scientific inquiry in the Middle East at the same time -- it's just that they probably relied much more heavily on oral communication than written. I would argue that even as late as the 16th or 17th century you could learn as much in a Sufi lodge or an Istanbul coffeehouse as you could in a European university. To frame the question around specific innovations is a bit arbitrary I think.

Case in point being, once the printing press became a mass phenomena in the Ottoman Empire (by the mid-19th century), they caught up pretty fast.

If anyone's interested in a great discussion about Ottoman printing (focused on the Qur'an, but ranging into the popular press as well), see this interview with Brett Wilson from Macalester. It does a good job of explaining why, as some have suggested here, the delay of the printing press' arrival to the Ottoman Empire had little to do with religion.

Some other interesting books on the Ottoman Press:

Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Making Jews Modern

Ami Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East

u/Lee_Ars · 106 pointsr/AbandonedPorn

There's a major wrinkle missing: the war between the two chief designers of the soviet space program that torpedoed all possibility of a soviet moon success.

Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko had a long-standing and increasingly vitriolic disagreement over which propellants the Soviet space program should be using. Korolev was in favor of cryogenic propellants—liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen (or RP1 + LOX, too). Glushko, on the other hand, favored storable hypergols instead of cryogens.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages; cryogens need to be kept very cold (or for LH2, very very cold) and because of that, fueling procedures for cryogen-powered rockets are very complex and involve a lot of conditioning and chill-down, and extra mechanisms for recapturing boil-off. Further, rockets can't be stored with fuel in them (important for ICBMs), and generally have to be de-tanked immediately if a launch is scrubbed.

Hypergols, on the other hand, are generally fine at room temperature and you can leave hypergolic-powered rockets fueled up and ready to go for extended periods without worrying about the fuel boiling away. However, hypergolic fuels tend to be murderously, hideously toxic. This means that not only are your pad workers in danger whenever they work with fuel—it means that if your rocket crashes or blows up, it spews out a horrifyingly toxic death-cloud.

The N1 was Korolev's baby. Originally intended to be used to reach Mars (or Venus, depending on who you ask), it was retasked by the Politburo and the N1-L3 plan was quickly beaten into shape. By that point in their careers, Glushko and Korolev were no longer speaking to each other; Korolev was in very poor health and died during an operation in 1965. The N1 eventually flew four times, but all four flights ended in various failures (one of the rockets exploded with the equivalent of about 1kt of TNT, making it one of the largest human-created non-nuclear explosions ever recorded). Glushko was eventually installed as the chief designer of the entire program and canceled the N1. His decision was made at least partially to spite Korolev's memory, as the N1 was Korolev's rocket.

The truly disappointing thing here is that it's very likely the N1's fifth flight, had it had one, would have been successful. However, it was 1972 at that point and the Moon wasn't really seen as a worthwhile destination for the Soviet space program anymore. Without a destination, the N1 was just a ludicrously expensive and overpowered rocket with no mission.

A fascinating historical footnote is how the Soviet space program in general, and their lunar program specifically, operated much more like how one might expect a US program to operate—numerous design bureaus were simultaneously executing several different plans at the same time, with the idea that the most successful would be expanded upon to become the "official" program. Conversely, the US used a much more Soviet-style "centrally planned" approach, allowing NASA to coordinate and control all aspects of the program through its army of contractors.

If you want to read about the Soviet space program, there are some great books available. The first—and the one I'd recommend most—is a two-volume work by Dr. Asif Siddiqi, who is the preeminent living expert on the Soviet's aborted lunar program. Part one is here, and part two is here. You can also get a single combined PDF of the whole thing (for free!) here.

The other work is Boris Chertok's Ракеты и люди ("Rakety i lyudi," or "Rockets and People") which you can get for free from NASA here, split into four volumes. Chertok was an engineer who worked in the Soviet aerospace industry and who was part of the Space Race from that side of the Iron Curtain; his first-hand experience with the Soviet side of the race makes for an incredibly illuminating read.

u/MarquisDePaid · 2 pointsr/WayOfTheBern

The world "globalist" started out as a term to mean someone who wants to empower internationals, break down borders, and do all this other harmful stuff

That's actually still what it means, regardless of the race of that person

However, some in the Jewish community took offense because there are "globalist Jews" who see Jews as the ultimate globalists, and this "globalization" as bringing about the "Jewish Century". These are not my words, these are the words of Yuri Slezkine as he wrote in his 2006 book literally called "The Jewish Century":

>This masterwork of interpretative history begins with a bold declaration: The Modern Age is the Jewish Age--and we are all, to varying degrees, Jews.

>The assertion is, of course, metaphorical. But it underscores Yuri Slezkine's provocative thesis. Not only have Jews adapted better than many other groups to living in the modern world, they have become the premiere symbol and standard of modern life everywhere.

>Slezkine argues that the Jews were, in effect, among the world's first free agents. They traditionally belonged to a social and anthropological category known as "service nomads," an outsider group specializing in the delivery of goods and services. Their role, Slezkine argues, was part of a broader division of human labor between what he calls Mercurians-entrepreneurial minorities--and Apollonians--food-producing majorities.

>Since the dawning of the Modern Age, Mercurians have taken center stage. In fact, Slezkine argues, modernity is all about Apollonians becoming Mercurians--urban, mobile, literate, articulate, intellectually intricate, physically fastidious, and occupationally flexible. Since no group has been more adept at Mercurianism than the Jews, he contends, these exemplary ancients are now model moderns.

Yuri believes in "Mercurian supremacy" in a way

>The book concentrates on the drama of the Russian Jews, including émigrés and their offspring in America, Palestine, and the Soviet Union. But Slezkine has as much to say about the many faces of modernity--nationalism, socialism, capitalism, and liberalism--as he does about Jewry. Marxism and Freudianism, for example, sprang largely from the Jewish predicament, Slezkine notes, and both Soviet Bolshevism and American liberalism were affected in fundamental ways by the Jewish exodus from the Pale of Settlement.

>Rich in its insight, sweeping in its chronology, and fearless in its analysis, this sure-to-be-controversial work is an important contribution not only to Jewish and Russian history but to the history of Europe and America as well.


This is important because if you view the r/judaism subreddit right now they literally "ironically" self-identify as "(((globalists)))"

It's not a term that was used to demonize Jews, it was a term used to demonize people who exploit global trade/migration to enrich themselves, and so the subset of Jews who believe in this ideology decided to embrace the misanthropic term as a sort of "victimhood"

Much like how people in the UK protest Corbyn for his "anti-semitism" for just criticizing Israel

Benjamin Wittes leads one the most powerful public policy influencing thinktank in America called the "Brookings institute", and he has openly stated on Twitter that he see's "America" as a "Jewish experiment" even more important than Israel/Zionism

>"There are two great 20th Century experiments in Jewish life. Zionism is the overrated one. The United States wins"

The point I make is that this is a very real ideology that tries to hide behind allegations of "antisemitism", even when those criticizing such people go at lengths to depict "globalism" as a non-Jewish affair by emphasizing non-Jewish leaders


u/unsubinator · 1 pointr/Catholicism

I was a Lutheran. My wife, baptized and raised Catholic in Poland. It was my intention to prove to her that the Catholic Church was wrong and the Lutheran church was...well...right.

To that end, I picked up the Catechism of the Catholic Church, hoping to know exactly what the Catholic Church taught I could refute it in good, Lutheran fashion--by Scripture and clear reason.

About a third of the way through, I find myself saying to myself, "This is True," and, "Why doesn't the Lutheran church have a book like this.

By about two-thirds in I had begun to realize that the Catholic Church was Who She claimed to be.

The Catechism is one of the greatest resources and gifts that the Church in the modern age has given us. But it's just a great place to start. Follow up with the footnotes and references. When it quotes a great saint, look up the source and read the context.

As far as comparing the Catholic faith to other faiths, though...I'm not entirely sure. I was baptized in the Lutheran church, was raised Lutheran and confirmed when I was 13, and then I had a long falling away. I dabbled for a long time in the occult and New Age before coming back to Christianity.

My first experience of Christianity (after my long time away) was the Bible. And then some web sites of Messianic Jews. Tektonics. Doug Beaumont, (all of this was back in 2001, 2002--these sites have changed a lot).

Then The Christian Research Institute.

All of these were definitely not from a Catholic perspective. But that was ok, because I never would have thought in my wildest dreams that the Catholic Church was really the One True Church.

Then, challenged by my future wife to learn what Luther thought of priestly celibacy, I started reading Luther's sermons, his theology, the Augsburg confession...and I eventually became a high-church Anglican/Lutheran, finally settling in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Oh, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, John Bunyan, and a little book I was given by a co-worker called The Way of the Pilgrim. That was even before I'd even started reading the Bible. I don't know what interest in sparked in me, but I think it must've done something.

(Actually, what started me on the path to learning about Christianity was reading "The Three Musketeers".)

Finally, right now I'm reading "Everyday Saints and Other Stories".

But, like I said, start with the Catechism with a Bible and a computer by your side to look up the references.

Hope this helps a little.

u/TenMinuteHistory · 8 pointsr/AskHistorians

I've always found the Stilyagi to be a pretty "amusing" trend in the Soviet Union. In part because the trend itself was amusing, and also because it says quite a bit about trendiness itself in the Soviet context.

The Stilyagi were basically young people living in the Soviet Union, especially in the 50s, who were very interested in (western) fashion, music etc. They pirated western music (especially jazz, rock and swing) onto X-Rays to create the infamous "Rock on Bones" that could be played on record players.

The recent musical film "Stilyagi," translated in the English version to "Hipsters" (which I think is kind of a bad translation, but I digress) is pretty entertaining and gives a kind of romanticized version of the history. I think it is a valuable movie for people to see if for no other reason than it provides a foil to the overwhelmingly grey/dark undersaturated vision we have of the Soviet Union.

Alexei Yurchak talks about the Stilyagi some in his excellent book Everything was Forever Until it Was No More (http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Was-Forever-Until-More/dp/0691121176/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1374004256&sr=8-13&keywords=Stilyagi)

Here is the trailer for the above mentioned film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfck-H8pC8E It is in Russian, I couldn't find an English subtitled version off hand.

u/Fiveos2 · 1 pointr/unpopularopinion

if you need me to say I am a Nazi so that you wont consider me 'hateful'...then fine...I will do that. After all the Nazis were not necessarily opposed to jewish interests (haavara agreement, Lehi militant organization)

whether or not people had some strange theories about jews and blood libel or well poisoning is pretty irrelevant. Such conspiracies do tend to tell you one thing: people didn't tend to trust jews very much in history. And this was an oddly non random trend in history...you don't see conspiracies about gypsies or basques or Scottish people or any other religious/ethnic group like you see about jews.


Jews cannot be all that scattered if they managed to...say...unite enough to force the UK to give them Israel. And jewish organizations such as the jewish world congress or jewish European congress have done a great job at various things such as making it illegal to criticize jews, protect the right to circumcise babies and often in various cases promote communist political theory.


jews are often self conscious of how jewish their organizations tend to become...this Sigmund freud explicitly regarded carl jung to be his token goy in psychoanalysis....and polish communist party members frequently changed their name to appear less jewish. It is quite typical for jews to change their name, as im sure you have noticed (Sumner Rothstein, for example).


you are basically forcing yourself to choose between 2 ridiculous extremes. There is never an assumption that jews are some sort of uniform hive mind...not even hitler suggested that (in fact he made a huge number of jews 'honorary aryans' and accepted them in the Nazi party)...and it is equally absurd to pretend that jews don't even notice the fact they are jewish and could not possibly feel allied to the welfare of jewish people. Both of these extremes are illogical. I have a more nuanced view on this....you should try to as well.

If jews have tremendous control over our cultural production...from schools to media and Hollywood etc...then it stands to reason that they will have an impact on our culture that essentially makes us more jewish. And you don't have to take my word for it....read what jews themselves say about this...for example: https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Century-Yuri-Slezkine/dp/0691127603

u/johnnytoomuch · 8 pointsr/Catacombs

"The Orthodox Church" By Kallistos Ware. A very readable and comprehensive book by a well respected convert now bishop.

Byzantine Theology by John Meyendorff. He is one of the greatest contemporary Orthodox theologians.

The Way of the Pilgrim Author unknown. This is a classic of Eastern Christian spirituality that brings many people into the Orthodox way.

Hope these help!

u/Psydonk · 86 pointsr/worldnews

> if we'd meddled, why would we have left an asshead like Putin in charge?

Ironically, because of US meddling, Putin IS in charge.

1996 elections, huge amounts of meddling by the United States and Russian Oligarchs on the side of United Russia to keep Yeltsin in charge. It's pretty much an open secret that the KPRF and Zyuganov won, but it was rigged and forwhatever reason Zyuganov didn't dispute and ran from a position of power. (though other opposition figures did in fact call out the results, there was also pretty much blatant rigging seen live on TV). (also off topic but releated, very much like the Communist party before Lenin, despite everyone trying to give them power, just constantly refused for whatever reason to step up, a book just got released on the topic called October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Mieville)

The Oligarchs and the US kept a braindead husk of a man in power and when he stepped down (god look at the state he was in), Putin rose to power.

If the US and the Oligarchs had not rigged that election, 100% Putin would not be in power today.

u/lhecht25 · 2 pointsr/news

No one is saying you shouldn't maintain your skepticism of the news, but there's a distinction to be made between news outlets, don't you think?

A news outlet that aspires to truth and one that aspires to propagandize shouldn't be falsely equated to one another.

Before claiming this is a false equivalence (or the opposite- claiming they are indeed similar enough to be equated) one should ensure there's substantial evidence supporting this claim. Otherwise the argument only serves to muddy the waters between news outlets.

There are some really dystopian consequences of removing all public trust in the media/press- imagine a country where everyone believes that Nothing Is True And Everything Is Possible.

u/1ilypad · 2 pointsr/history

I posted this a few weeks ago, I hope it helps!!! Its very USSR specific though :\ Sorry!

I had a craving to learn Soviet history a few years ago. These are some of the ones I found. Though its hard finding a good unbiased account in English. Since there are alot of ideological bitterness and disagreements that still hold on to this day.
I found the soviet histories written by Dmitri Volkogonov, a soviet historian and officer, to be quite good. He wrote a trilogy on Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. Which covers alot of the early decades of the USSR.


Volkogonov also wrote Autopsy For An Empire: The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime. Which, despite being long and dull at times, Volkogonov clearly was not a trained author. It still shines though as a good read.

I am currently reading though Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age. Which picks up soon after Stalin's death in the 50s and into the 60 and 70s. I found it to be a good inside view on the space race on both sides and the details you rarely hear about in average documentary or Western sided books on the subject.

Though I have not read it yet. Ive heard that The Soviet Experiment, by Ronald Suny, is a fantastic read and account of the Soviet Union. Hes also edited together books of essays, which I have heard is very good.

I hope this helps!!

u/leebd · 10 pointsr/chernobyl

Okay so I'll say this up front. Most of my information comes from my cousin, a nuke tech, and the following book.

The general concept of a nuclear power plant is you are using the energy and heat from a nuclear reaction to create steam to spin a turbine. That turbine has a north and south pole that when turned within a coil produce electricity.

When they are talking about the core they are talking about the chamber, cooling system, and reaction control system for that nuclear reaction. Chernobyl used graphite control rods to speed up or slow down the reaction as needed for energy production. US Plants use a different system that doesn't involve graphite as the control substrate if I remember correctly.

During this disaster however the control rods didn't insert fully to stop the reaction and the excess heat caused an explosion which blew the top of the reactor core through the roof.

The following is a pretty good illustration of what the reactor core was supposed to look like. The core itself is the red square and figure 24 is what went flying through the roof of the facility.

Anybody else with more or better information feel free to chime in because I'll admit I'm not an expert here, just a history nerd.

u/moofdivr · 1 pointr/politics

>I suppose if you consider the fall of Soviet Communism as a "waste", then I suppose you'd be right saying SDI was a waste as well. Although, I'm well aware of the Left-wing love and pining for the Soviet Union.

Yes, we all love and pine for a failed state. So we're going to go with the narrative that Democrats are somehow communist? Haha ok buddy, that'll sure work on anyone even remotely intelligent. In all seriousness though, claiming that Reagan and his military spending were the root cause of the fall of the USSR merely proves how very ignorant you are on the subject. Read this Remnick' novel if you actually want to learn about Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, Perestorika, and why exactly all the satellite states pulled out of the union (you know, the actually reasons for its fall). We both know you won't let these facts get in the way of your narrative however.

u/mrpithecanthropus · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

I confidently predict that you are going to get a lot of politically motivated responses to this question and that they will all be removed. To get the ball rollling hopefully in the right spirit, I would recommend the works of Anglo-American historian Robert Conquest. He wrote extensively about the Soviet Union and the impact of collectivisation, Stalinism etc at time when the jury was still out. His most famous work was The Great Terror.

u/insanemetal187 · 10 pointsr/Libertarian

...not that bad? Here's a quora post?!

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

For about what it was actually like during that time.

Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick


About what it looked like around the fall of USSR.

Eastern Border Podcast

If you want something more casual, less dense and a podcast

If you weren't a party member there was no "pretty good win" for anyone. I would have happily been homeless in any other first world country than "middle class" in a socialist country during the 20th century.

u/rocketsocks · 76 pointsr/AskHistorians

There were several key elements to the Soviet manned moon program. The spacecraft components were the Soyuz 7K-LOK (the equivalent of the Apollo CSM) and the LK Lander (the equivalent of the LM). The major launch component was the N1 rocket. Additionally, the Soviets developed the Zond spacecraft for manned flybys of the moon on a free return trajectory which could be launched on the Proton rocket.

Unfortunately, every launch attempt of the N1 failed and the Soviets were never able to achieve any degree of operational success in their moon program. By 1969 the Soviets had the capability on paper to launch manned spacecraft to orbit the moon, but not land on it. It was not until 1974 that LK lander development was finished, they even planned another N1 launch attempt with an unmanned LOK/LK stack to attempt a robotic dry run of a moon landing. But by they decided not to push their luck with the N1 and the cancellation of further Apollo landings reduced the pressure to try to keep up.

Hypothetically, if nothing had failed and the Soviets were aggressive at putting crews on launches then they could have put a man on the moon by 1974, perhaps a few years earlier. Somewhat more realistically, if they had not cancelled their program and didn't have any other major N1 failures then they probably would have been able to make a landing in 1975 or so.

Further Reading:

u/mercurial_zephyr · 3 pointsr/DemocratsforDiversity

I definitely plan to! I might get it next. I'm reading The Great Terror, the classic study of Stalin's Purges right now.

I think the way the 60s are remembered in popular memory is really distorted. The Hippie movement was not nearly as popular as people seem to remember. And the youth conservative movement was also HUGE.

The '72 election was really a watershed. McGovern was portrayed as the candidate of "Abortion, Amnesty and Acid" LMAO

u/restricteddata · 3 pointsr/AskHistorians

I think a pretty compelling argument can be made for this if you're trying to boil it down to very simple terms, and trying to figure out a single most important factor — defined here as the one variable that had the most impact on the specific way it went down. There were more factors than just Gorbachev involved, of course, but if Gorbachev had taken a conservative course, one could imagine a limping USSR making it through the 1990s. Gorbachev's attempted reforms swung the system out of balance, and this combined with his lack of any serious attempt to really reign it in is what, in my view, really leads to its end. There was nothing inevitable about it, and I've never been convinced whatsoever that it had much to do with external factors (e.g. American spending on armaments). Just because the USSR was in decline for many decades (the petrodollars that had sustained it through the 1970s were losing their strength) doesn't mean it had to collapse when it did; we have plenty of examples of limping authoritarian states that don't collapse despite even worse declines.

I'd be curious what hardcore Soviet/Russian historians think, though.

My favorite, readable book on the endgame of the USSR is David Remnick's _Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire_. It is journalistic, but Remnick's access was impeccable and his conclusions seem pretty sensible. And it's a fun read, at that. Worth checking out if you are interested in this stuff.

u/yvonneka · 25 pointsr/videos

Not sure what what you mean by elaborate but basically, nearly all state records have been preserved in the USSR and its satellites after its fall. Everything from how many people were sent to the Gulag in a particular year to how many bushels of wheat were collected from Ukraine, to who rated on whom in the summer of 1934, can be found in the state archives. The only thing to keep in mind, is that the figures in most of the records are inflated (or deflated) as officials tried to make their camp, their farm, their village or city, look better to the authorities. Also, in East Germany and Poland, all the records that the Stasi (secret police) kept on its citizens were preserved and after 1989 anyone can request to see your own file and see what the gov't had on you (not sure you can do this in Russia though, can anyone confirm?). If you'd like an interesting read about the Soviet Union on communism and how bureaucratic it was (thanks to that bureaucracy we now have all these records) read Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire

u/idioma · 1 pointr/technology

I could offer you a reading list to elucidate my points about Russia and the negatives of imperialism within burgeoning industrialist society. Right now however, I'm actually very stretched thin. I'm on a business trip that looks like will now be extended. I'm working just under 100 hours per week now that I've inherited two more projects that were supposed to be assigned to others. It's kind of a cop-out to not further expand on my earlier statements. But since I don't perceive you as being particularly close-minded (if anything you seem appropriately honest about what you do and do not know) it might actually be beneficial to simply provide you with the data as it was presented to me, and then let you draw your own conclusions.

For starters I'd recommend reading about the history:

http://www.amazon.com/Russia-Russians-History-Geoffrey-Hosking/dp/0674011147

This book gives a very wide-angle approach to Russia, Russians, and their governments.

http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Forever-Until-More-Formation/dp/0691121176/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_c

This book offers a bit more of an intimate perspective about perhaps the most relevant generation of Post-Soviet influence.

http://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Second-Consequences-American-Empire/dp/0805075593

This book offers some insight into America's foreign policy during the 20th century. In particular the negative impact of crafting foreign policy through an aggressive campaign of global occupation. The latter chapters talk about China and the former Soviet Union and draws many disturbing parallels with the United States defense spending habits in the last decade.

http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States-1492-Present/dp/B004HZ6XWS/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300861749&sr=1-2

This book will perhaps be the most controversial read out of the list. It deals with the very unfortunate relationship between corporatism and American politics as well as the various stages of civil rights and labor movements. There is also a great deal of additional facts about imperialism in America which expands many of the points made by Chalmers Johnson.

http://www.amazon.com/What-Means-Libertarian-Charles-Murray/dp/0767900391/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300861920&sr=1-1

There are several areas of agreement in this book between the views expressed by Chalmers Johnson and Howard Zinn. While the principles certainly come from different places, there is a well-reasoned, and thoughtful common ground. It is challenging from any perspective to completely agree or disagree with these narratives, but the contrast is most refreshing.

http://www.amazon.com/Pig-That-Wants-Eaten-Experiments/dp/0452287448/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300862132&sr=1-1

This book is basically a breath mint. The subjects being tackled in the rest of these books can often be somewhat troubling. This book will offer you short thought experiments that will prove entertaining as well as provocative. They will also help provide some lightheartedness to the mix.

u/Holmes02 · 1 pointr/politics

Currently reading Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia by Peter Pomerantsev just to learn how Trump's administration will attempt to use propaganda to get away with pretty much everything.

Edit: I'm not the only one. Paperback is sold out on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610396006/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Edit 2: u/Deggit peaked my interest with this book from this comment

u/Turnshroud · 21 pointsr/badhistory

Hey guys, just a reminder: we're having a big Cinema Saturday Movie event on Saturday at 4pm EST we, as well as the good people of /r/conspiratard and /r/badscience will be watching a 1 hour and 40 or so minute montage of conspiracy theory nonsense brought to you by /u/lesshatefulbullshit

As such, I think it best that we come up with a suitable drinking game for the event

On a more serious note, do any of you guys have experience with this book or its author?It's for my Modern Russia course and it does seem to have a slight anti-communist/anti/Russia slant, although it is bringing up some good points which are very valid, especially when it comes to Putin.

Also, there's this one, and this one
which seems to include some stuff on the purges and the practices of Soviet Russia, which I like subject-wise. Should prove to be interesting.

Also my books are rather thin this semester, only a few hundred pages per book, interesting. Even the primary source books are a bit on the thin side, I'm just going o assume that there's a reason for this--projects maybe.


Also plug for /r/BadEverything , /r/confederacy, and Badoysters. Also just because activity has slowed down a bit, /r/BadCGI

Also I'm sitting on /r/Maputo if anyone wants it. I just wanted to save it from any possible racists. That and /r/TotallyRealConspiracy redirects to /t/conspiratard

u/Meadow_Foxx64 · 2 pointsr/socialism

The obvious choices would be Rosa Luxemburg's The Russian Revolution or Leon Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution. Victor Serge's Year One of the Russian Revolution is also a classic.


Some other good, and more contemporary, suggestions are China Mieville's October: The Story of the Russian Revolution. Mieville is a member of the e International Socialist Organization and is an active participant in many leftist political political movements. Whether or not he is a Leninist, I am not sure. Neil Faulkner wrote a book called A People's History of the Russian Revolution. Neil Faulkner is a Marxist historian, and as the title indicates, it is presented from a leftist perspective. A bit off topic, but Faulkner has also written the great A Marxist History of the World: From Neanderthals to Neoliberals — which covers not only the Bolsheviks, but human history in its entirety. Once again, from a Marxist point-of-view.

To conclude — and since you mentioned "relatively light" — I'll also recommend The Russian Revolution, published in Sutton's "Pocket History" series. The author — Harold Shuckman — has written much about the history of 20th century communism, however, I am not aware if he does or does not,himself, support any sort of socialist ideas.

Out of all these, Rosa's work is probably the most difficult. So if you were looking for light material, Faulkner or Mieville would be, in my view, your 'go-to's'.

u/Fandorin · 2 pointsr/OldSchoolCool

Russian book called Hidden Cosmos. The Russian wiki has a pretty good writeup, but it's in Russian.

Edit: Also, James Harford has a much more serious and concerning performance appraisal based on interviews in the 90s with retired Soviet (now Russian) flight planners in his book on Korolev. Here's a link to the book on Amazon, if you're interested in Soviet space history. Its excellent.

u/MyShitsFuckedDown3 · 3 pointsr/AskHistorians

I'm not sure I, or /u/PoblachtObrithe, really understand your question as you seem to be splitting it between two very different topics. One being the historical facts of how the Soviet Union organized and calculated the wages paid to workers and a second theoretical point as to how such a calculation is performed. Unfortunately both topics are pretty complicated and simply don't lend themselves to short answers.

On the historical question of wages within the Soviet Union, they were organized under a variety of different, often coexisting regimes. The broad, structural, differences between the economic policies of Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev has been discussed somewhat. However there were many elements contained within these broad policies that lead to differences between industries and even classes.

For example, during the NEP era it was rather common for local peasant communities to organize into what were called 'artels'. These were small peasant communes, often lead by local elders, that would negotiate for a collective wage between the state, other artels or local businessmen. During the NEP these were fairly common and were organized by what can only be described as fairly free market dynamics. Though, they did survive to some extent well into the Stalinist period as so-called Brigades.

Within the industrial working sectors of the economy it was rather similar to working in any nominally capitalist society with the exception of more state control. The state could essentially veto an industrialists policies or even place managers in their positions but the dynamics were largely the same.

During the industrialization period of the Stalin era we see a dismantling of the broader market, especially for industrial production and with it working class unions shifting position. Many were more or less absorbed in some form as an arm of the state and their character changing from a role of collective bargaining or working-class organization towards a distributive arm of the state which would handle issues of welfare distribution. The artel system was still fairly common. In 1932 we see the introduction of state incentives and benefits to so-called "Shock Workers" who regularly outperformed within industrial production.

Throughout this time period the higher order of planning was performed by Gosplan which developed the famous Five Year Plans which would then be enacted by the Politiburo. These were supposed to be broader frameworks outlining the aim of Soviet development. In reality this often fell apart to resource constraints that fell on the heads of resource managers to work out. From here on I'll defer to two previous /r/askhistorians posts that I think do the job of explaining Soviet economic thought in general seen here and here much better than I could.


That said my primary sources for this are The Soviet Experiment by Ron Suny and The Political Economy of Stalinism by Paul Gregory

u/billy_tables · 5 pointsr/conspiratard

I would absolutely suggest anyone interested in the relationship between the press, politics, and the state, have a read of Peter Pomerantsev's Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible. Presents an interesting view of how things are in Russia, and how Putin gained power by "weaponising" the media.

u/genida · 14 pointsr/worldnews

And if someone wants more on Russia in general, this one was excellent, this Putin bio was pretty good and Putin's Kleptocracy is turning out promising.

And here's the Red Notice amazon page too, in case someone wants to read some reviews.

u/Lurkndog · 1 pointr/space

I don't know about a documentary, but there are two good history books by Asif Siddiqi on the Soviet space program:

u/ImInterested · 1 pointr/politics

> I'm now convinced I missed it just because there is so much nonsense that came out of that campaign, and now the white house that I can't keep up.

Realize that it is a political strategy, Chaos and Confusion. Putin used it in Russia with great success.

I try to do the following ( Not always successful ) :

  • ignore soap opera Whitehouse stories

  • wheels of justice turn slow let Mueller do his work, especially if you are not a lawyer

  • outrageous statements made by Trump etc, don't waste much time. Ask what else is going on?

  • try to find what Trump and his cabinet are doing

  • blog posts 6 paragraphs / 2 sentences each do not make us informed

  • don't forget you need breaks

    Post I saw the other day, did not confirm.

    During Election the day Trump "grab by pussy" came out the Obama admin said Russia was playing around in the election.

    Chaos and Confusion

    Book : Nothing is true, everything is possible

    RAND Paper
u/Guitar_of_Orpheus · 3 pointsr/WeHateMovies

I like what he does in Eaters of the Dead, taking the narrative of the original Beowulf poem and then turning it into an epistolary novel based on Ahmad Ibn Fadlan's real manuscript, which is a fascinating read in its own right

u/ABoyOnFire · 2 pointsr/TheDarwinProject

Great to know!

Well lucky for you, that I am old! I'm actually quite a fan of him.

u/okbanlon · 2 pointsr/space

Dragonfly - I highly recommend it as well. Excellent, comprehensive book about Mir.

u/kinderdemon · 3 pointsr/ArtHistory

Well if you like the Peredvizhniki: check out Vereschagin: he was a war artist, embedded with the troops and developing a really intense realistic form (I think of his as another Russian Courbet): e.g. Apatheosis, Road of the War Prisoners

Russia has had a long and turbulent artistic history in the last two or three centuries, and there is no one essence or spirit of an era or area. However, if you have specific questions I can answer them: Russian 20th century art is my area of expertise is (with an emphasis on the 1970s) I can probably recommend some good books ;)

What are you interested in specifically? Late 19th century? The avant-garde? Stalinism and socialist realism? Nonconformism and the underground? Natasha's Dance is a good cultural history of the 19th century and early 20th while Everything was Forever until it was no More is good on the post-war culture.

u/somercet · 3 pointsr/KotakuInAction

Please. This is not a broken legal system. If they had their way, this would read like the sicker parts of the show trials in Robert Conquest's The Great Terror.

u/FreelanceSocialist · 2 pointsr/space

I haven't read too many that would fit the bill, but the first ones that come to mind are:

u/TheIrelephant · 4 pointsr/geopolitics

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Putins-Wars-Rise-Russias-Imperialism/dp/1442231378

This is a pretty decent read on the topic if your interested. I listened to it in audiobook format and enjoyed it.

u/Randy_Newman1502 · 1 pointr/AskEconomics

This is an interesting question but it falls into the realm of history.

You may want to go on /r/askhistorians and ask about Pyotr Stolypin's land reforms.

I will quote for you the relevant section of Richard Pipes' book which is the main book I've read on the subject:

>An initial step in this direction was a law of October 5, 1906, which accorded the Russian peasant, for the first time in history, civil equality with the other estates.47 It removed all restrictions on peasant movement, depriving the communes of the power to refuse members permission to leave. The land commandants could no longer punish peasants. Thus disappeared the last vestiges of serfdom.
Stolypin addressed himself concurrently to the issue of land shortage, increasing the reserve of agricultural land available for purchase by peasants and facilitating access to mortgage money. The Peasant Land Bank, founded in the 1880s, had already in 1905 received broad powers to provide easy credit to help peasants acquire land...


Different parts of the Russian empire had different agrarian sensibilities. In "Great Russia," most land was communally owned and there were not sufficient incentives to use the latest techniques, etc resulting in low productivity. In the Western part of the Russian empire (Poland, etc), there was much more private landholding and higher agrarian productivity. Stolypin wanted the same system for "Great Russia."

Here's Pipes again:

>How successful were Stolypin’s agrarian reforms? The matter is the subject of considerable controversy. One school of historians claims that they led to rapid changes in the village which would have prevented revolution were it not for Stolypin’s death and the disruptions of World War I. Another school dismisses them as a reform foisted upon unwilling peasants and undone by them immediately after the collapse of the Imperial regime

>In sum, slightly more than one communal household in five took advantage of the law of November 9. But this statistic ignores one important fact and, by doing so, makes the reform appear still more successful than it actually was. The economic drawback of the commune lay not only in the practice of repartition but also in that of strip farming, or cherespolositsa, which was an essential corollary of communal organization. Economists criticized this practice on the grounds that it forced the peasant to waste much time moving with his equipment from strip to strip and precluded intensive cultivation. Stolypin, well aware of the disadvantages of cherespolositsa, was eager to do away with it, and to this end inserted in the law a clause authorizing peasants wishing to withdraw from the commune to demand that their holdings be consolidated (enclosed). The communes, however, ignored this provision: the evidence indicates that three-quarters of the households which took title to their allotments under the Stolypin law had to accept them in scattered strips.62 Such properties were known as otruba; khutora, independent farmsteads with enclosed land, which Stolypin wanted to encourage, existed mainly in the borderlands. Thus, the pernicious practice of strip farming was little affected by the Stolypin legislation. On the eve of the 1917 Revolution, a decade after Stolypin’s reforms had gone into effect, only 10 percent of Russian peasant households operated as khutora; the remaining 90 percent continued as before to pursue strip farming.

Interesting question, but not economics.

u/TotesNottaBot · 3 pointsr/politics

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible which is about Russian society after almost two decades of Putin's rule.

The Warmth of Other Suns and Hillbilly Elegy because, in my opinion, they describe the past in way that informs the present social strife that Trump used to divide and conquer to win the Republican primary and general elections. If the Left is going to have a political answer in 2 and 4yrs for the people who either declined to vote altogether or who voted Trump, we have to understand and have compassion for their plight.

Hell's Angels because of Thompson's pinpointed description of the "politics of revenge". And also his book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 has some parallels to the 2016 election.

It Can't Happen Here is in the same realm as 1984.

u/uwjames · 2 pointsr/politics

Even if he isn't in Putin's pocket, Trump and his administration are totally out of their league. Hillarious how all the Trump supporters claim he is some sort of grand master. Putin is the real wiz.

Have you read Kasparov's book, "Winter is Coming."?

https://www.amazon.com/Winter-Coming-Vladimir-Enemies-Stopped/dp/1511365447

I actually haven't read it yet, but I've heard some great interviews with him.

u/amaxen · 1 pointr/DebateaCommunist

Good lord, man.

There are histories of Russia from 1890-1980 all over the place and they broadly agree.

I'd recommend A People's Tragedy for a well-told history with solid historical foundations. One with more heft is Pipes' The Russian Revolution. Also, Court of the Red Tsar is a must-read on Stalin.



u/estrtshffl · 2 pointsr/communism101

The best marxist history book every year is awarded the Deutscher Prize - named after Isaac Deutscher who wrote a three vol. biography on Trotsky which I'm currently in the middle of reading.

Vol. 1

Vol. 2

Vol. 3

Also not Soviet history specifically, but Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein talks about the (forceful) liberalization of markets in Poland and Russia after the collapse of the USSR - which I found pretty great. Link

I also enjoyed Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick who is the current editor of the New Yorker and was the NYT's Moscow reporter during the collapse of the Soviet Union, but some people on the left for sure have problems with him. Link

Edit: Obviously each book is biased in its own way. Deutscher seems fair now but I am slightly worried it'll drift into hagiography. And obviously David Remnick is from an American's perspective in the late 80's - and everything that comes along with that.

u/sipporah7 · 4 pointsr/suggestmeabook

I enjoyed "Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster." It has a good introduction to the science of what happened in the reactor, which I appreciated since I'm not a nuclear scientist.

u/renewalnotice · 3 pointsr/politics

https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Experiment-Russia-Successor-States/dp/0195340558

I have a master's in polisci. It's fun because it really makes you laugh at the Bernie Kids.

u/Ennorelle · 2 pointsr/Jewish

There is a cool book on the subject !

https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Century-Yuri-Slezkine/dp/0691127603

It's written by an American Historian. Basically, it explains why Jewish pepole are fit to thrive in today's world, mainly due to their culture. I highly recommand it, it's very interesting

u/Goldberg31415 · 2 pointsr/space

Well the best place would be to start from technical side of things.
RPE by Sutton
https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutton/dp/0470080248

And Taming liquid hydrogen shows the problems of hydrolox that had to be solved to make lunar flight possible with rocket as small as SaturnV

https://www.history.nasa.gov/SP-4230.pdf

Russian N1 relied on kerosine and had only 1/2 the power of Saturn for TLI trajectory and that forced the design of their single person lander.

The historical perspective on the race is well shown in here https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Space-Race-Apollo/dp/0813026288

u/MayTheTorqueBeWithU · 1 pointr/spaceporn

If the Shuttle/Mir era interests you, Dragonfly is a must-read. It has a lot of inside stories of the people involved, and is a great technical and human drama.

http://www.amazon.com/Dragonfly-NASA-And-Crisis-Aboard/dp/0887307833

u/Hold_onto_yer_butts · 3 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

The guy they interview wrote Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, which goes into far more detail and is a whole lot of fun.

u/contextsubtext · 4 pointsr/suggestmeabook

History college student here with a concentration in this area. I study under a well-known (in academia, haha) Russian history professor, and his overview of choice is Russia and the Russians. The book covers most of Russian history but you could skip to the Soviet Union part and have a great experience. I want to stress, however, that without some background in Russian history prior to the USSR, it'll be difficult to wrap your head around why the people have the reactions they do to events in the Russian revolutions of the early 20th century. This is why I recommend to you a book above which gives you an overview of that, too.

For a specific Soviet overview, perhaps to be read after Russia and the Russians, consider this one. The USSR section of Russia and the Russians will be shorter, and easier to digest as a first pass, but this will give you a lot more detail.

Having read multiple biographies of Stalin, this one is my favorite. As you're no doubt aware, this will give you a lot of Soviet history.

Reply or PM me with any other questions. I've personally read these books and perhaps a dozen others covering this time period so maybe I can help further.

u/Morfolk · 1 pointr/ukraine

> All media is full of shit: Belgian, US, Russian and Ukranian.

This is exactly how propaganda machine gets you: Nothing Is True Everything Is Possible

While no media can provide an ideal and detailed account of any event, there is a huge difference between a source that gives you 90% truth with some omitted details and a source that gives you 10% of truth and a bunch of specifically created lies like Russian state-controlled media does.

u/TheFoolishWit · 2 pointsr/politics

I think you're thinking of one particular book, which is really good: Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, by Peter Pomerantsev.

u/jw101 · 3 pointsr/Christianity

>Meditation in the matter? Certain qualities and things to ponder upon?

Try the "Jesus prayer" and maybe check out this book

The way of the Pilgrim: and the Pilgrim continues on his way

I feel like I'm linking a lot of books to amazon lately, it really makes me wonder if people need books or not.

u/IrishWaterPolo · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

Most of the wikipedia links are to airplanes or rockets, because wikimedia is an easy reference for pictures. Non-wikipedia sources are included in each comment, below are some others.

[Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon] (http://www.amazon.com/Korolev-Masterminded-Soviet-Drive-America/dp/0471327212/ref=pd_sim_14_5?ie=UTF8&dpID=41ZjHiVXSTL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR106%2C160_&refRID=0VVV61Y70PS29GB1J8WY)

[The Politics of Space : a Comparison of the Soviet and American Space Programs] (http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Space-Comparison-American-Programs/dp/0841901856/ref=sr_1_1_twi_unk_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449700911&sr=1-1&keywords=The+politics+of+space+%3A+a+comparison+of+the+Soviet+and+American+space+programs)

[Eisenhower and the Cold War Arms Race: 'Open Skies' and the Cold War Arms Race] (http://www.amazon.com/Eisenhower-Cold-War-Arms-Race/dp/1780762798/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449701131&sr=1-1&keywords=Eisenhower+open+skies+arms+race)

The next one is not a book, but a journal article from the peer reviewed Journal of American History:

The Sputniks Crisis and Early United States Space Policy: A Critique of the Historiography of Space.


Happy reading :)

u/LockeProposal · 2 pointsr/TheGrittyPast

I would most recommend Richard Pipes' The Russian Revolution, but Orlando Figes' A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924 is a very close second. I have both and would almost recommend them equally.

Hope that helps!

u/blerghHerder · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

This (The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the Soviet Union, and the Successor States by Ronald Suny) is the textbook we used for my Soviet History class in college. I really enjoyed it, it wasn't very dry, it was pretty thorough about economics, politics, causes for the socialist revolution, etc. Unfortunately, it is a textbook, so somewhat pricey, but if you can find a cheap copy, it's worth it.

u/lemon_meringue · 25 pointsr/politics

The book Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia is a really excellent (if terrifying) look at the way that the media operated by Putin's authoritarian state has manipulated and brainwashed entire populations. And it was published a solid year before the 2016 election. It's a rough read but I think it's a book everyone in America should be familiar with.

u/ThreadbareHalo · 8 pointsr/worldnews

Russia's constitutions a two consecutive term limit on the presidency of four years. Putin took a break and had Medvedev step in, many argue to get around this limit as well as increase the duration of each term (see source at the time). He also, as proposed in this article, suggested removing the consecutive part of the limit, but of course stated that that wouldn't apply to him. You can also read Winter is Coming by Garry Kasparov (former Russian world chess champion) for some more interesting political two steps done to keep regimes in power.

u/r00kie · 2 pointsr/HistoryPorn

I highly recommend reading Starman and Korolev they both really bring a lot of perspective to the cosmonaught program while really highlighting why it was such a cluster fuck of KGB involvement and soviet politics.

I gained enormous amounts of respect for both men after reading the books.

u/FullMetalSquirrel · 1 pointr/The_Donald

Russian identity is a part of their culture and always has been. Nationalism is not new nor a 90s concept. We just looked at it differently after the CW ended. This is a great Russian history book that outlines this. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0674011147/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1483129928&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=russia+and+the+russians&dpPl=1&dpID=415C9TF7GQL&ref=plSrch

u/BroomShakzuka · 1 pointr/politics

In a recent episode of Sam Harris' podcast Garry Gasparov (former world chess champion and political activist) predicted this very trend: https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-putin-question Gasparov actually wrote a book about Putin that is now high on my reading list: https://www.amazon.com/Winter-Coming-Vladimir-Enemies-Stopped/dp/1511365447

u/KSW1 · 1 pointr/OrthodoxChristianity

Is this a good translation?

u/YouTwistedWords · 1 pointr/television

Nothing is true, everything is possible.

Yes you should be skeptical. Of course that includes the claims I am making.

u/WalrusWarlord · 2 pointsr/Russianhistory

Ron Suny's The Soviet Experiment is very good and has sections at the end of each chapter with suggestions for further reading

https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Experiment-Russia-Successor-States/dp/0195340558/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473105688&sr=8-1&keywords=0195340558

u/Waterproof_Moose · 1 pointr/history

As a journalist, Remnick really captures a lot of what went on. But short answer? The economy collapsed.

This, in my opinion, is the best book on the topic.

u/AvroLancaster · 13 pointsr/JordanPeterson

If you want to follow that path even further, read this book.

It's a journey through how Putin creates exactly the feeling you're experiencing to control Russia, how the strategy developed over time, and what it's like to live in Russia once truth died.

u/helemaalnicks · 4 pointsr/politics

> Why are americans so anti Russia?

It's not just Americans, it's anyone who opposes kleptocracy and autocratic rule. If you're really interested, don't ask on reddit, read a book about it instead.

u/MrDannyOcean · 38 pointsr/badeconomics

creating a post-fact world where nothing can be trusted and nothing is true is the first step towards an illiberal, anti-democratic society. It's step 1 in the neo-fascist handbook. It's literally the method Putin used in Russia. See the book Nothing is true and Everything is possible

u/DoktorSoviet · 5 pointsr/politics

I've heard good things about Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible to detail the cultural mindset of the "New Russia" but to be frank I have yet to read it.

u/Love_Comes_In_Spurts · 5 pointsr/politics

> nothing matters

> anything can happen

Nothing is true, and everything is possible

u/mjrdanger · 4 pointsr/space

Yes the book Dragonfly

u/LavastormSW · 33 pointsr/chernobyl

The guy who made this imgur set also has a book called "Chernobyl 1:23:40," which I have and have read multiple times. It's a little rough on the grammar, but the story and information are solid and it expands on the imgur post.

https://smile.amazon.com/Chernobyl-01-Incredible-Nuclear-Disaster-ebook/dp/B01E4MAIS8

u/artgo · 27 pointsr/politics

> I’m interested in learning more about this. Do you have sources for these or other tactics that are being employed?

There is a book that was published after this story:, same author https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/russia-putin-revolutionizing-information-warfare/379880/ (story 2014, book 2015): https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610396006

A lot of it comes from my personal observations, which I have basically been doing full time now since 2015 when I personally realized what was going on. my central education is Joseph Campbell's Comparative Mythology, about 8 years of learning on that, and I saw Middle East hate brother-vs-brother MEME patterns (weaponized) being pushed which I recognized from Campbell's teaching. From there, I found out about what Russia has been like the past 10 years, the media of their homeland. Then I also discovered Howard Bloom's year 2000 book about the "Mass Mind". Further, I found a 1993 theory from Duke University Rick Roderick describing a 7-hour idea that I have studied for about 400 hours in total. Roderick was worried about the future of his children, and put forth how he saw human minds could be exploited in various ways to give up their personhood (he called "our fractal selves") through media and ideas. Adam Curtis called out Surkov too, and his December 2014 declaration of the forthcoming British-Exit-EU assault I found.

It's a massive topic, and our enemy is extremely powerful. “I am the author, or one of the authors, of the new Russian system,” Vladislav Surkov told us by way of introduction. On this spring day in 2013, he was wearing a white shirt and a leather jacket that was part Joy Division and part 1930s commissar. “My portfolio at the Kremlin and in government has included ideology, media, political parties, religion, modernization, innovation, foreign relations, and ...”—here he pauses and smiles—“modern art.” - https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/hidden-author-putinism-russia-vladislav-surkov/382489/

Only this year we found out the 2012 origins and the Cambridge Analytica integration: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/11/24/a-trumprussia-confession-in-plain-sight/

As part of my understanding of where we are, I share some thoughts and patterns I am trying to make sense of over on /r/WhiteHouseHyperReal

u/amnsisc · 2 pointsr/pics

Bullshit. The USSR was not expansionist, whatever you want to say about it. The countries which became communist after WWII did so because of it. They would not have fallen under Soviet influence without the war. Furthermore, if you read narratives of the diplomatic engagements, Roosevelt, himself, was willing to give Stalin even more, while Churchill was reticent but ultimately willing.

The USSR had more than ten national languages. Stalin was Georgian. Kruschev was Ukranian. Many of the early leaders were Yiddish speaking Jews, Muslim Central Asians & so on. So the idea that they were Russophilic imperialists is also just plainly false.

The USSR was invaded as soon as it was founded by Germany who barreled on to within miles of its capital despite repeated attempts to sue for peace. In addition, the US invaded the USSR on its founding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_Siberia) as did Greece, France, England & Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War). That is an all out assault, before it was ever even a unified state, before one could level any critique of it, before any policy. It was never given a chance. Had it been, they would have been less paranoid & militaristic. Many accounts of it describe this (https://www.amazon.com/Stalin-Paradoxes-1878-1928-Stephen-Kotkin/dp/0143127861

https://www.amazon.com/Ruling-Russia-Authoritarianism-Revolution-Putin/dp/0691169322

https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Fates-Lost-Alternatives-Stalinism/dp/0231148976

https://www.amazon.com/October-Russian-Revolution-China-Mi%C3%A9ville/dp/1784782777/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1502913444&sr=8-5&keywords=russian+revolution)

The USSR repeatedly called on Western powers to ally to defeat the Nazis as well as support the Spanish Republic. The Nazis wanted to rule the world & eliminate the entire Russian subcontinent.

u/mydogsnameisbuddy · 2 pointsr/worldnews

Yeah it was! His book isn’t too bad either. I read that before the election and didn’t think it would ever be relevant. 🙄

Garry Kasparov’s book Winter is Coming is really good too.

u/DethFiesta · 2 pointsr/WayOfTheBern

> And did you know Healthcare is 1/6th of the economy?

Yes, if you didn't know this and you are commenting on health policy then you are an idiot.

> and voted Stein in the general.

Congrats. You handed Trump his win. The amount of votes going to Stein in the three states that unexpectedly put Trump over the top all received more Stein votes than Trump's margin of victory. I think Stein is right in a few areas but is for the most part a bonehead. And completely unelectable.

> If you cannot hear the war drums beating and almost the exact same trumped up, on wishy washy non-evidence like in the run up/(foist) to the Iraq War

What I hear is a reaction to Russia's obvious malfeasance and aggressive actions against our country.

You should probably just purchase this:

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610396006

If you are pretending Russia isn't an aggressive actor bent on harming the US then you haven't been paying attention.

> I think Stein is even better than Bernie on foreign policy.

Who cares? She can't get elected.

u/Unimagi · 1 pointr/ussr

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610396006

I'm not saying this is 100% everybodys experience or this is only book you shold read but I liked this book. This is written by somebody who is from west and goes to russia for work right after USSR collapsed.

u/Boredeidanmark · 2 pointsr/worldnews

Try this

It’s not about just the Bolsheviks, but this was a fascinating book on the vast murder that took place in Eastern Europe in the 30s and 40s. Wash it down with something happy, I made the mistake of reading it back-to-back with this and became pretty depressed for a few weeks.

u/mpv81 · 29 pointsr/politics

You might see the first AG (attempted) appointee that isn't even an attorney. As crazy as this circus is, you might see Alex Jones on the list. Uncharted territory here everybody.

Nothing is true and everything is possible

u/BaconBlasting · 1 pointr/politics

If nothing is true, anything is possible.

It's straight out of Putin's playbook.

u/pizzashill · 1 pointr/news

If you want to understand Russia, you should read this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610396006

u/red_firetruck · 2 pointsr/The_Donald

Anybody who thinks Communism is okay needs to read this book. The only good Communist is a dead one. They are the enemy of individualism and freedom.

u/UserNamesCantBeTooLo · 19 pointsr/worldnews

That's best summed up in chess grandmaster-turned-human-rights-activist Garry Kasparov's book WINTER IS COMING.

Basically, by not doing anything when Putin committed human rights violations, ran sham elections, or invaded neighbors. Sanctions only started to bite with the 2012 Magnitsky Act and at the end of 2014 after Russia invaded Ukraine. (The Magnitsky Act didn't hurt the Russian economy, it mainly hurt Putin and his cronies specifically). Most of the time, as when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, other world leaders just called it "troubling" and did nothing.

It's surprising how the West has treated this mafia state as a legitimate government. They added Russia to the G7 to make it the G8 for a time. Bush said he looked into Putin's eyes and saw his soul, and liked what he saw.

It might sound like I'm just disparaging the Russian government, but it really is like the mafia.

One of the next people to be assassinated might be Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who used to be the richest man in Russia. (A guy who works for Khodorkovsky was poisoned last month)

Khodorkovsky was imprisoned after Putin rose to power because he was funding opposition parties.


What happened next was described in Bill Browder's Senate testimony last year:
> "After Khodorkovsky’s conviction, the other oligarchs went to Putin and asked him what they needed to do to avoid sitting in the same cage as Khodorkovsky. From what followed, it appeared that Putin’s answer was, 'Fifty percent.' He wasn’t saying 50 percent for the Russian government or the presidential administration of Russia, but 50 percent for Vladimir Putin personally. From that moment on, Putin became the biggest oligarch in Russia and the richest man in the world..."


Bill Browder is an American who worked in investment in Russia. He worked and became friends with Sergei Magnitsky, a tax lawyer who discovered and publicized theft of tax dollars by Putin's friends. After Magnitsky blew the whistle, Putin’s government arrested him, then tortured and beat him to death.


Because of this, the U.S. passed the Magnitsky Act, which imposed financial sanctions on Russian oligarchs connected to Putin.


Putin became richer than Bill Gates by stealing and self-dealing in his position at the top of Russia's government. The Magnitsky Act threatens that and is motivating Putin to increase his influence in other countries, hoping to get sanctions lifted.


That's the key to understanding the Russian government's behavior: Putin ruthlessly uses his government for personal gain, and badly wants sanctions lifted.

He's now getting what he wants:

  1. Trump Jr. offered rescinding the Magnitsky Act in exchange for dirt on Clinton in that infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian agents.

  2. Trump Sr. told Maria Butina, a Russian activist, shortly after starting his campaign that he wanted to lift sanctions on Russia.

  3. After it was revealed Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, the Obama administration imposed further sanctions on Russia, but Trump’s team had Mike Flynn contact the Russian ambassador to assure him Trump would undo those sanctions. Flynn was later indicted for lying to the FBI about those secret conversations.

  4. The U.S. Congress mandated new sanctions on Russia, and Trump has refused to enforce them.
u/Percival_Snugglebutt · 34 pointsr/politics

In other words, Russia.

u/BR2049isgreat · 37 pointsr/europe

No, Khrushchev did not approve Stalinist policies on a personal level, trying to undo most of them while in office in the "thaw". He wrote extensively in his memoirs about his dislike of them and the guilt he felt for not being able to do more. Don't get me wrong the man believed in the oppressive nature of the USSR(at least until Brezhnev overthrew him) but he wasn't a dictator on the level of Stalin in any way.

I would recommend https://www.amazon.com/Lenins-Tomb-Last-Soviet-Empire/dp/0679751254 for a somewhat contemporary and at the same time retrospective view other USSR and its biggest figures. Tragic and sometimes funny.

u/AnotherBlueRoseCase · 2 pointsr/politics
u/futtigue · 1 pointr/space

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0887307833

Bryan Burrough.

A lot of the book covers the politics of the joint Russian/American missions to the ageing MIR, but I read it for the firsthand accounts of the MIR fire and Progress collision and wasn't disappointed.

u/AUSinUSA · 1 pointr/conspiracy

I would have agreed with you until I read this book. Now I think Putin is worse than he seems on TV.

u/DrPepperThanks · 3 pointsr/ukpolitics

[You're thinking of this book] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Everything-Forever-Until-More-Formation/dp/0691121176) Everything was forever until it was no more

u/__JonnyG · 1 pointr/ukpolitics

No we really aren't. If you're willing to influence an election illegally that's the ultimate insider information. Trading is about calculating risk and reward. Even I as a remainer I could see the value of shorting £ as a hedge. If I knew I could corrupt the campaign I would of invested a lot more! Excuse me for my shortness but you just aren't paying attention. I have given evidence relentlessly on here and you know what? No one listens or even looks at it. So sorry but it's easy find the truth with evidence and see whats happening right now. It's right there if you want to see it. There's plenty of people writing about it.

The billionaire "conspiracy" is a conspiracy in as much as very real people are conspiring to make that a reality hence wealthcare bills in US and tax haven UK. The British tabloid press share foreign weaponised clickbait aimed at weakening our democracy. Their goal? To weaken government and deregulate. It's about billionaires buying up as much of our democracies as quickly as possible. Brexit and Trump is much like how Putin turned Russia into a Kleptocracy.

Some of my sources will require buying and reading entire books. Old school I know.

u/kdoubledogg · 10 pointsr/Catholicism

> in that respect, he doesn't seem all that different from the media image of vladimir putin

When I see statements like this, it always reminds me of this excellent BBC article on Russian media tactics.

> Peter Pomerantsev, who recently spent several years working on documentaries and reality shows for Russian TV, argues that Russian state media are not just distorting truth in Ukraine, they go much further, promoting a seductive nihilism.

> "The Russian strategy, both at home and abroad, is to say there is no such thing as truth," he says.

> "I mean, you know, 'The Americans are bad, we're bad, and everyone's bad, so what's the big deal about us being a bit corrupt? You know our democracy's a sham, their democracy's a sham.'

> "It's a sort of cynicism that actually resonates very powerfully in the West nowadays with this lack of self-confidence after the Iraq War, after the financial crash - and that's what the Russians are hoping for, just to take that cynicism and then use that in a military environment."

By the way, if you liked that little blurb, you'll love Pomerantsev's entertaining book, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible.

EDIT: Linking the BBC article

u/Garet-Jax · 9 pointsr/worldnews

You need to read this book

RT is indeed a worthless propaganda rag.

u/The_Thane_Of_Cawdor · 1 pointr/AskHistory

If you are truly interested I would read this book

https://www.amazon.com/Lenins-Tomb-Last-Soviet-Empire/dp/0679751254

> he lets the system's defects speak for themselves: the corruption, the reckoning with the Gulag, the trivial self-seeking of the apparat, the failure of social safeguards (for example, against homelessness) and much more. Even these are not described and weighed in a formal sense. The scale and nature of the corruption emerges from the tale of the Remnicks' nanny, who to bury her mother had to bribe everyone from the scheduler of funerals to the grave digger and, in the end, pay a sum equal to three months' wages. At the other end of the spectrum stands the regional Uzbek party leader who lived in a vast estate with peacocks, lions, thoroughbred horses and concubines. Thus each of the dimensions of the problem and of Gorbachev's answer is revealed.

u/elliptibang · 1 pointr/changemyview

Have you heard of Peter Pomerantsev? He wrote a very well-received book called Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible in 2014. You should read that, along with this in-depth article he wrote for The Guardian in April of the following year. Here's a representative excerpt:

>Late last year, I came across a Russian manual called Information-Psychological War Operations: A Short Encyclopedia and Reference Guide (The 2011 edition, credited to Veprintsev et al, and published in Moscow by Hotline-Telecom, can be purchased online at the sale price of 348 roubles). The book is designed for “students, political technologists, state security services and civil servants” – a kind of user’s manual for junior information warriors. The deployment of information weapons, it suggests, “acts like an invisible radiation” upon its targets: “The population doesn’t even feel it is being acted upon. So the state doesn’t switch on its self-defence mechanisms.” If regular war is about actual guns and missiles, the encyclopedia continues, “information war is supple, you can never predict the angle or instruments of an attack”.
>
>[...]
>
>Where once the KGB would have spent months, or years, carefully planting well-made forgeries through covert agents in the west, the new dezinformatsiya is cheap, crass and quick: created in a few seconds and thrown online. The aim seems less to establish alternative truths than to spread confusion about the status of truth. In a similar vein, the aim of the professional pro-Putin online trolls who haunt website comment sections is to make any constructive conversation impossible. As Shaun Walker recently reported in this newspaper, at one “troll factory” in St Petersburg, employees are paid about £500 a month to pose as regular internet users defending Putin, posting insulting pictures of foreign leaders, and spreading conspiracy theories – for instance, that Ukrainian protestors on the Maidan were fed tea laced with drugs, which led them to overthrow the (pro-Moscow) government.
>
>Taken together, all these efforts constitute a kind of linguistic sabotage of the infrastructure of reason: if the very possibility of rational argument is submerged in a fog of uncertainty, there are no grounds for debate – and the public can be expected to decide that there is no point in trying to decide the winner, or even bothering to listen.

It's important to understand that what we've been calling "fake news" isn't just fake news. It isn't The Onion or even The National Enquirer. It's something entirely novel: a powerful new kind of propaganda, actively funded and steered by a hostile foreign power, delivered on a massive scale via open social media platforms that are uniquely vulnerable to it. And it's working--not just in the US and the UK, but all over the Western world.

If we were talking about earnest attempts at real journalism, I'd agree with you. Google shouldn't block media outlets on the basis of political disagreement. But that isn't a sensible way to describe what's happening here.

u/imphatic · 4 pointsr/worldnews

I hate that you are being downvoted because there is a very real possibility that this is true. This book is basically all about how manipulative the Russian government is and how their strategy is to create an environment where no one knows what is real or fake.

u/TheBotsAreBackInTown · 7 pointsr/politics

Also, check out Nothing is True and Everything is Possible for more on how the Russian society has been led down a hole of pessimistic cynicism through the use of the Firehose. It's sickening to see it happening here in the US, but moreso infuriating that it's coming from the Oval Office and the shitstain with a breathing apparatus they float as spokesperson.

u/ClemsonTigers16 · 34 pointsr/politics

You should read Garry Kasparov’s Winter Is Coming. It details the erosion of Russian democracy in its infancy. Putin has become a dictator and aggressively undermines democracy in its neighborhood and abroad. Every US and major European leader since the fall has appeased Russia and turned a blind eye to their atrocities. American foreign policy has discarded the lessons of the previous century. Instead of standing for human rights and democracy, we have ignored the outrageous behavior of powerful countries in the hopes of economic engagement. We make principled stands against Cuba, Libya, and Yugoslavia. Yet we appease countries like Russia and China.

As a Democrat, it pains me to say that Clinton and Obama were two of the worst when it came to Russia. We need a president that will partner with Europe and other likeminded nations to take a stand against human rights violators.