The World Cup, a month on
Only a month on, what can a historian add? First of all the usual pleasantries. My household was completely hooked. It was a spectacularly successful event, generating excitement and enthusiasm, … Continue reading
James Bond’s Russia question
James Bond is faced with a unique Russia question in Ian Fleming’s fifth 007 novel, From Russia With Love, published in 1957. Does Tatyana Romanova really want to defect from … Continue reading
The analogy misleader
You don’t have to watch US cable news for very long before somebody asks about history and Trump. Can you find a comparison? A precedent? Or is Donald Trump so … Continue reading
A Bolshevik Christmas
Today is Russian Christmas, dated according to the calendar of the Orthodox Church. Now it’s a popular festival, but for seventy-four years, under the guise of the Soviet Union, Russia … Continue reading
Most enjoyable Russia book of the year?
Many fine books have been published on Russia this year. But one of them kept me turning the pages more quickly than the others, and not from a dutiful need … Continue reading
Remembering 1917: the impossible task
As 2017 draws to a close, the centenary of the Russian Revolution — arguably the founding event of the contemporary world — has famously passed off without much fuss. This … Continue reading
America meets Russia in the Urals
Even during the height of the Cold War, it was for a time fashionable to say that no two peoples were more similar than Americans and Russians. Some of the … Continue reading
