The Russian Chronicles: A Thousand Years That Changed the World

by Joseph F. Ryan, Norman Stone (Foreword), Orlando Figes

The story of Russia, a vast empire straddling Europe and Asia, is enigmatic and tangled, rife with paradox and mystery. In The Russian Chronicles, the people themselves speak out and tell the story of their troubled land from its beginnings to the momentous upheaval of the Revolution in 1917. These first-hand accounts are complemented by vividly illustrated texts written by a team of eminent historians that unravel the complex political and social background the origins of the Slavic people, the horrors of serfdom, the life of the nomadic Cossacks, the Orthodox Church, and other aspects of Russian life through the ages.

Genres: Russia, History, Russian History, Nonfiction

397 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Allen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book hit the trash pretty quick. It is pure Putin-style propaganda, the founding myth of Russia that denys the history of Ukraine and Belerus, terming everything as Russian from the founding of Kyiv onwards. Much of this founding mythology was developed by the time of Catherine. Old sources were destroyed and rewritten according to Russia's need to have a noble beginning going back many centuries before it even existed. They took Ukrainian history and twisted it to remove Ukrainians and insert Russians.

[Artemis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not bad. A lot of history to cover, but its pretty good and easy to understand.