The Making of Modern Russia

Penguin, 1990, 2nd edition

Starting with the coming of the Slavs in the 6th century, this gives incisive, brief accounts of the Mongol conquest, the birth of the nation-state, the development of Russian autocracy and early Romanov absolutism. Later chapters take us through from the first stirrings of Tsarist power and the Bolshevik era, providing a full-scale analysis of the Great Terror and the Cold War, including the policies and personalities of such major figures as Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and Brezhnev, National minorities, relations with Islam, the impact of Western technology and the role and status of women are among the other issues discussed in this guide to Russia's past...