"Drawing on sources and archival materials in Russian and Turkic languages, Russia's steppe frontier presents a complex picture of the encounter between indigenous peoples and the Russians." --book cover.

"CIA officers Sia and Max enter Russia under commercial cover to recruit Vladimir Putin's moneyman. Sia works for a London law firm that conceals the wealth of the superrich. Max's family business in Mexico--a CIA front since the 1960s--is a farm that breeds high-end racehorses. They pose as a couple to target Vadim, Putin's private banker, and his wife, Anna, who--unbeknownst to CIA--is a Russian intelligence officer under deep cover at the bank....

Focusing on the chaotic period during the collapse of the former Soviet Union this is the first-hand account of a young man's struggle to make a fairly honest buck in a world riddled with corruption and deceit. Unlike other memoirs, this book offers a "view from the street" and shows the human face of the Russian people, so at odds with their autocratic leader.

The Amber Room: Unveiling History's Golden Enigma

Discover the mystery that has fascinated the world for generations. Journey through the opulent world of the Amber Room, a masterpiece of artistry, wealth, and intrigue. From its birth in the Sunstone Palace to its disappearance during World War II, from the labyrinth of theories to its miraculous reconstruction, this book unravels the captivating tale of a room that has left an indelible

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Esther Kingston-Mann is Ford Service Professor of History and American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She is the author of Lenin and the Problem of Marxist Peasant Revolution and coeditor and contributor to Peasant Economy, Culture, and Politics of European Russia, 1800-1921 (Princeton). This ground-breaking work documents Russian efforts to appropriate Western solutions to the problem of economic backwardness since the time...

"Immediately after Russia began its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Nora Krug reached out to two anonymous subjects--"K.," a Ukrainian journalist, and "D.," a Russian artist--and began what would become a year of correspondence. Based on her weekly interviews with K. and D., Krug created this collection of illustrated accounts that chronicles two contrasting viewpoints from opposing sides of the first year in this ongoing war. With...

Convention on the definition of aggression signed on 3 July 1933, established the borders of modern Romania. As in the case of its neighbors, Czechoslovakia and Poland, revisionist currents in Europe during the interwar period threatened Romania' s newly established frontiers, one of the most serious threats being posed by the Soviet Union which sought to regain possession of Bessarabia, a Romanian territory that had been occupied by Russia from...

Threads of Empire examines how Russia's imperial officials and intellectual elites made and maintained their authority among the changing intellectual and political currents in Eurasia from the mid-16th century to the revolution of 1917. The book focuses on a region 750 miles east of Moscow known as Bashkiria. The region was split nearly evenly between Russian and Turkic language speakers, both nomads and farmers. Ufa province at Bashkiria's core...

A fully illustrated survey of the German infantryman on the Eastern Front in World War II.
The German Army was all-conquering until late 1941 when, only a few miles short of Moscow, it ran out of steam. Maniacal defense, the Russian winter and exhaustion all played their part and, although they didn’t realize it, the German forces wouldn’t advance further on this front. While they continued their offensives into 1942, Soviet...

Once Upon a Time in Ukraine is about a time about 35 years ago during the Glasnost years under Mikhail Gorbachev when the Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. I went there on a citizen diplomacy trip in 1989, and I took several hundred photos in Kiev. The book features a portfolio of over 200 photos, a chapter I wrote about visiting the Ukraine from Before the Russian Revolution, and a traditional folktale, The Lord of the Crows. I was especially...