The Military History of the Soviet Union by R. Higham

by Robin Higham

Introduction; F.W.Kagan & R.Higham PART THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET ARMY AND NAVY The Russian Civil Wars, 1917-1921; D.Jones The Russo-Polish War; R.Ponichtera & D.Stone Ideology and the Rise of the Red Army, 1917-1929; D.Stone Industry and the Rise of the Red Army, 1929-1941; D.Stone The Rise and Fall of Soviet Operational Art, 1917-1941; F.W.Kagan Dress Rehearsals, 1937-1941; M.Habeck The Great Patriotic War, Barbarossa to Stalingrad; J.Erickson The Great Patriotic War, Rediscovering Operational Art; F.W.Kagan The Red Air Force; M.O'Neill The Russian/Soviet Navy, 1900-1945; C.Lovett PART THE SOVIET ARMY AND NAVY IN THE COLD WAR AND BEYOND The Cold War, the Nuclear Revolution; S.Zaloga The Cold War on the Ground, 1945-1979; M.O'Neill The Soviet Cold War Navy; C.Lovett Cold War Afganistan; S.McMichael The Soviet Army in Civil Disturbances, 1988-1991; S.Blank The Russian Armed Forces in a Democratic Conclusions and Prospects; W.E.Odom

Genres: Soviet History, Military Fiction, History

Paperback

First published February 9, 2002

About the author

Robin David Stewart Higham was a British-American historian, specializing in aerospace and military history, who also served as a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.

Reviews

[GreyAtlas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A true scholarly work of art. I appreciated the organizational aspects of the chapters and sources. The information was fairly interesting and decent to read for non-experts.

[Bubba · Rating 4 out of 5]

An edited volume is often a mixed bag; not all chapters are created equal. This collection, however, is predominantly high quality, with contributions from experts like Odom, Stone, and Zaloga. All war fighting domains are covered in a fairly evenhanded manner, though the ground forces (as should be expected from a book on the Soviet military) recieve the bulk of the attention.

Zaloga's chapter on the strategic forces (which covers up to the 21st century in contemporary Russia) is a welcome inclusion for the general reader. And, essays on the role of the military in internal security, and civilian-mitary relations, round out the collection nicely.

I have not read the 2010 edition, but assume it brings many of the scholars' predictions about the future of the post-Soviet Russian military into accord with developments since 2002 (including the "New Look" reforms that followed its poor showing in Georgia in 2008). Though, of course, that is far beyond the scope of a history of the Soviet military.