Description

‘Wise and thorough’ Spectator

‘Brisk and readable … very valuable’ Financial Times

‘He is an engaging guide … and writes with the same flair demonstrated in his previous bestseller Afgantsy’ Sunday Telegraph

‘A scholarly yet highly readable gallop through the last 1000 years of Russian history … To understand this tormented nation, you can do no better than read this illuminating portrait’ Jonathan Dimbleby

With its attack on Ukraine, Russia’s future seems almost as uncertain as its past. The largest country in the world – with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons – has been known over the past thousand years as Rus, Muscovy, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Thirty years ago it was reinvented as the Russian Federation.

Russia is not an enigma but its past is violent, tragic, sometimes glorious, and certainly complicated. Like the rest of us, the Russians constantly rewrite their history. They too omit episodes of national disgrace in favour of patriotic anecdotes, sometimes more rooted in myth than reality.

Expert and former ambassador Rodric Braithwaite unpicks fact from fiction to discover what lies at the root of the Russian story, more relevant to the rest of the world now than ever before.

Publisher Review

Rodric Braithwaite's Russia is a scholarly yet highly readable gallop through the last 1000 years of Russian history. As befits a distinguished former diplomat, Braithwaite is judiciously opinionated. To understand this tormented nation better - and thereby how Putin came to launch his catastrophic invasion of Ukraine - you can do no better than read this illuminating portrait -- Jonathan Dimbleby Crucial ... readers seeking a more nuanced view [of Russia] will find Braithwaite's brisk and readable account very valuable -- Gideon Rachman * Financial Times * Braithwaite tells us not to give up hope, at least for the post-Putin era * The Times * Braithwaite's narrative, from the origins of Kievan Rus to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, is wise and thorough. It's the work of a man with a deep inside knowledge of and sympathy for Russia's people and their culture * Spectator * As Britain's ambassador to Moscow between 1988-92, Braithwaite witnessed first-hand the Russian fall from greatness that Putin is now trying to resurrect. He is an engaging guide, though, to the entire past Russian millennium - and writes with the same flair demonstrated in his previous bestseller Afgantsy, about the disastrous Soviet Afghan campaign * Sunday Telegraph * Readers seeking a more nuanced view will find Braithwaite's brisk and readable account very valuable. The book covers more than 1,000 years of history, culminating in what Putin termed the "geopolitical catastrophe" of the collapse of the Soviet Union -- Gideon Rachman * FT * A valuable book that would set many pundits straight ... Putin might do well to read [it] -- Seamus Martin * Irish Times * Praise for Moscow 1941: 'A remarkable epic, vividly portrayed * Sunday Telegraph * A heartbreaking and thrilling story of peerless heroism and misery on a barely imaginable scale -- Simon Sebag Montefiore Praise for Afgantsy: 'This is the book every politician, every general, every diplomat contemplating getting into, or out of, Afghanistan should be made to read. [A] masterpiece -- Sherard Cowper-Coles * Guardian *