Are historians really losers?
Soviet history presents us with some of the most extraordinary events, places and people in all of the twentieth century. And yet in the classes I teach, we spend hours … Continue reading
Waiting for dawn
Tibor Szamuely sounded like a pessimist, and with good reason. Years after his release from the Gulag, he wrote a compelling book, The Russian Tradition, whose central argument is that … 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
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
John le Carré, Russianist?
Russia runs like a red thread through the novels of John le Carré. Often it’s there as a proxy — the secret police chief, the guards outside the embassy, or … Continue reading
Bruce Chatwin: through the Iron Curtain
How iron was the Iron Curtain? Every ‘through the curtain’ experience tells us something about the division of Europe during the Cold War. It adds evidence to any view of … Continue reading
Stalin and Hiroshima
In Hiroshima today, President Obama avoided a politically toxic and morally doubtful apology for the atomic bombing of Japan. Instead he faced up to the dangers of war. ‘We have … Continue reading
The Trump-Putin axis
One brilliant publicist salutes another. President Putin declares that presidential candidate Donald Trump is ‘a very bright and talented man’. Nodding at the conventions of international non-endorsement, he adds an … Continue reading
Denis Healey (1917-2015): clever critic of Soviet life
Denis Healey, who died last Saturday, was a twin of the Russian Revolution. Unlike many of his peers, he got the Soviet Union right. Born in 1917, he was a … Continue reading
The Philadelphia ghetto, the CIA, and the Soviet city
It’s not a very constructive argument. The neighbours scream that your new fence encroaches on their garden; you shout that their extension bears a doubtful relationship to the building regulations. … Continue reading
