Slavery, Law, and Politics - Reflections on the Soviet Union

Zusatztext The Dream That Failed...offers an impressive display of Laqueur's knowledge and intellectual powers. Informationen zum Autor Walter Laqueur as been hailed as "one of our most distinguished scholars of modern European history" (New York Times Book Review), and "one of the most remarkable men in the Western world working in the field,"(Journal of Modern History). His most recent study of the Russian extreme right was described as "a model to study Russia" (American Historical Review). Walter Laqueur was for twenty-five years the director of the Institute of Contemporary History and the Wiener Library in London. He is editor of the Journal of Contemporary History and serves as chairman of the International Research Council at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. His books, which have been translated into many languagues, include Black Hundred, Russia and Germany, The Long Road to Freedom, The Fate of the Revolution, Terrorism, and most recently an autobiography, Thursday's Child has Far to Go. Klappentext Walter Laqueur as been hailed as "one of our most distinguished scholars of modern European history" in the New York Times Book Review. Robert Byrnes, writing in the Journal of Modern History, called him "one of the most remarkable men in the Western world working in the field." Over a spanof three decades, in books ranging from Russia and Germany to the recent Black Hundred, he has won a reputation as a major writer and a provocative thinker. Now he turns his attention to the greatest enigma of our time: the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. In The Dream that Failed, Laqueur offers an authoritative assessment of the Soviet era--from the triumph of Lenin to the fall of Gorbachev. In the last three years, decades of conventional wisdom about the U.S.S.R. have been swept away, while a flood of evidence from Russian archives demands newthinking about old assumptions. Laqueur rises to the challenge with a critical inquiry conducted on a grand scale. He shows why the Bolsheviks won the struggle for power in 1917; how they captured the commitment of a young generation of Russians; why the idealism faded as Soviet power grew; how thesystem ultimately collapsed; and why Western experts have been so wrong about the Communist state. Always thoughtful and incisive, Laqueur reflects on the early enthusiasm of foreign observers and Bolshevik revolutionaries--then takes a piercing look at the totalitarian nature of the Soviet Union.We see how Communist society stagnated during the 1960s and '70s, as the economy wobbled to the brink; we also see how Western observers, from academic experts to CIA analysts, made wildly optimistic estimates of Moscow's economic and politicalstrength. Just weeks before the U.S.S.R. disappearedfrom the earth, scholars were confidently predicting the survival of the Soviet Union. But in underscoring the rot and repression, he also notes that the Communist state did not necessarily have to fall when it did, and he ex Zusammenfassung Walter Laqueur as been hailed as "one of our most distinguished scholars of modern European history" in the New York Times Book Review. Robert Byrnes, writing in the Journal of Modern History, called him "one of the most remarkable men in the Western world working in the field." Over a span of three decades, in books ranging from Russia and Germany to the recent Black Hundred, he has won a reputation as a major writer and a provocative thinker. Now he turns his attention to the greatest enigma of our time: the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. In The Dream that Failed, Laqueur offers an authoritative assessment of the Soviet era--from the triumph of Lenin to the fall of Gorbachev. In the last three years, decades of conventional wisdom about the U.S.S.R. have been swept away, while a flood of evidence from Russian archives demands new thinking about old assumptions. Laqueur rises to the challenge with a cr...

Product details

• Authors: Don E. Fehrenbacher, Professor Walter Laqueur Laquer, Walter Laquer, Walter Laqueur Laquer, Walter Laqueur
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 15.02.1996
• EAN: 9780195102826
• ISBN: 978-0-19-510282-6
• No. of pages: 242
• Series: Galaxy Books; Galaxy Books
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > History > 20th century (up to 1945)