Robert Legvold

Czech Republic   November/December 2018 Capsule Review

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Communists and Their Victims: The Quest for Justice in the Czech Republic

After the fall of an authoritarian regime, countries often spend years trying to come to terms with the past and find justice for the victims of state oppression....

Robert Legvold

Politics & Society   November/December 2018 Capsule Review

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Tito and His Comrades

It is no small feat to capture the essence of a figure in whom courage, stalwartness, and even compassion mixed with cunning, ego, and brutality, but Pirjevec succeeds...

Robert Legvold

Business   November/December 2018 Capsule Review

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Rich Russians: From Oligarchs to Bourgeoisie

The term “Russian oligarch” suggests ostentatious wealth and gangster-like behavior. But Schimpfössl argues that is an outdated image, more suited to the 1990s than...

Robert Legvold

Religion   November/December 2018 Capsule Review

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A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism

Smolkin describes a nuanced and variable relationship between atheism and religion in the Soviet Union.

Robert Legvold

Vladimir Putin   November/December 2018 Capsule Review

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The Code of Putinism

To understand how informal networks of interlocking govern the Russia and carry out foreign policy, one needs to know the “code” that guides them, which Taylor says...

Robert Legvold

Politics & Society   November/December 2018 Capsule Review

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The Dawn of Eurasia: On the Trail of the New World Order

The future, Maçães argues in this startlingly original assessment, will be dominated by an emerging Eurasian “supercontinent,” shaped by China’s, Russia’s, and the EU...

Richard Feinberg

Arms Control & Disarmament   September/October 2018 Capsule Review

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The Kremlinologist: Llewellyn E. Thompson, America’s Man in Cold War Moscow; From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia

Llewellyn Thompson served eight U.S. presidents as a diplomat, including two stints as U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union. This rigorously documented book by his two...

Robert Legvold

Russia & FSU   September/October 2018 Capsule Review

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The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia

Gangsters turn up in every society, but the shape they take and the ways in which they operate depend to a great extent on the culture and politics of their countries...

Robert Legvold

Russia & FSU   September/October 2018 Capsule Review

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A World of Empires: The Russian Voyage of the Frigate Pallada

In 1852, the Russian frigate Pallada set sail from a naval base near St. Petersburg on a voyage that would round the Cape of Good Hope, cross the Indian Ocean to...

Robert Legvold

Russia & FSU   September/October 2018 Capsule Review

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The Treacherous Path: An Insider’s Account of Modern Russia

Yakunin is one of Russia’s wealthiest people. A former KGB officer, entrepreneur, government official, head of Russian Railways, and, at times, member of President...

Robert Legvold

Politics & Society   September/October 2018 Capsule Review

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Orbán: Hungary’s Strongman

Lendvai’s tautly argued, baleful account of the career of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will correct anyone who once harbored the illusion that eastern...

Robert Legvold

Russia & FSU   May/June 2018 Capsule Review

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Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe

Bechev introduces a sophisticated and cool-headed corrective to the crude image of Russian foreign policy favored by much of the Western press.

Robert Legvold

Ukraine   May/June 2018 Capsule Review

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Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes From the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine

The story of Stalin’s terror is well known, except for one dimension: the fate of those among the tormentors who were themselves swept into the meat grinder.

Robert Legvold

Romania   May/June 2018 Capsule Review

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My Life as a Spy: Investigations in a Secret Police File

From 1973 to 1988, Verdery, an anthropologist, spent a total of nearly four years conducting field research in Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania.

Robert Legvold

Ukraine   May/June 2018 Capsule Review

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Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz

In this wrenching but beautiful history, Bartov follows the Jews of Buczacz, an eastern Galician town in what is now Ukraine, from the sixteenth century to World War...

Robert Legvold

War & Military Strategy   May/June 2018 Capsule Review

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Peacemakers: American Leadership and the End of Genocide in the Balkans

Pardew was at the center of the U.S. diplomatic intervention in the former Yugoslavia from the time of the 1995 Dayton peace accords, which ended the Bosnian war and...

Robert Legvold

Russia & FSU   May/June 2018 Capsule Review

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Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia

Miller challenges the popular notion that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s entire talent lies in using corruption to sustain a kleptocratic authoritarian regime.

Robert Legvold

Russia & FSU   March/April 2018 Capsule Review

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Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution: Mob Justice and Police in Petrograd; Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914–1921

Regardless of whether one sees Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks’ commitment to social and economic justice as genuine, their most important legacy was a new...

Robert Legvold

Russia & FSU   March/April 2018 Capsule Review

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The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution; Putin’s War Against Ukraine: Revolution, Nationalism, and Crime

These two books take radically different approaches to exploring Ukraine’s dramatic recent history.

Robert Legvold

Russia & FSU   March/April 2018 Capsule Review

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Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder

The number of prominent political figures, journalists, and dissidents murdered in Vladimir Putin’s Russia raises a fundamental question.

Robert Legvold