Book on USSR history

dahamsta

Can anyone recommend a book on the history of the USSR in the 20th century? This is for personal enjoyment and not academic reasons, so I'm looking for something colourful, simplified, non-partisan and preferably not enormous.

adam

richindub2

Not strictily USSR history but Alan Moorehead's The Russian Revolution ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0881843318/qid%3D1064335753/026-1919160-9207669 )is a very readable account of the revolution. Orlando Figes' A Peoples Tragedy goes into more depth on the subject and gives more before and after detail but is rather large ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/071267327X/ref=sr_aps_books_1_2/026-1919160-9207669 ).

If you wanted lighter stuff you could probably find lots of Tom Clancy (Redstorm rising by him springs to mind) style stuff that would go into some detail about the USSR.

The Beer Baron

I've heard a lot of great things and read some rave reviews of Anthony Bevor

with books on Stalingrad and the Soviet march on Berlin in the final days.

Supposed to be very gritty and very intense reading.

Manach

I'd agree with richindub2 about Moorehead.
Also "The Russians" by Smith
and try Solzhenitsyn's works. His prose style is rather turgid but is powerfully written for all that.

dahamsta

Thanks folks.