History : Soviet Union

Steve Coll's Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 offers revealing details of the CIA's involvement in the evolution of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the years before the September 11 attacks. From the beginning, Coll shows how the CIA's on-again, off-again engagement with Afghanistan after the end of the Soviet war left officials at Langley with inadequate resources and intelligence to appreciate the emerging power of the Taliban. He also demonstrates how Afghanistan became a deadly playing field for international politics where Soviet, Pakistani, and U.S. agents armed and trained a succession of warring factions. At the same time, the book, though opinionated, is not solely a critique of the agency. Coll balances accounts of CIA failures with the success stories, like the capture of Mir Amal Kasi. Coll, managing editor for the Washington Post, covered Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992. more...

Price: $18.00

1. The Age of Enthusiasm. 2. 1917: The Russia We Lost. 3. The Fall of the Soviet Union. 4. Totalitarianism. 5. Sovietology: An Epitaph (I). 6. Sovietology: An Epitaph (II). 7. How Many Victims?. 8. The Nationalist Revival. 9. East Germany: A Case Study. 10. Conclusion. Notes. Index more...

Price: $25.95

This book asks the reader to reassess the Cold War not just as superpower conflict and high diplomacy, but as social and cultural history. more...

Price: $51.95

Between 1917 and 1920--from the Bolshevik Revolution to the definitive statement of American opposition to Bolshevik Russia--Soviets and Americans searched for ways to effect meaningful interactions between their two nations in the absence of formal diplomatic relations. During these years, wide-ranging discussions occurred on a variety of serious issues, from military collaboration and economic relations to the comprehensive settlement of political and military disputes. At the same time, extensive debates took place in both countries about the nature of the relations between them. As McFadden shows in this pathbreaking book, based on research in Soviet archives as well as previously unused private collections and government archives in the United States and Great Britain, a surprising number of concrete agreements were reached between the two countries. These included continued operation of the American Red Cross in Russia, the transfer of war materials from the Russian army to the Americans, the sale of strategic supplies of platinum from the Bolsheviks to the United States, and the exemption of a number of American corporations from Soviet government nationalization decrees. Numerous important diplomats and politicians were involved in these negotiations. McFadden offers a timely reevaluation in a post-Cold War era.  more...

Price: $145.00

Explores the history of the "new school" that developed in the immediate postwar period and its role in communicating antifascism to young people in the Soviet zone. This study traces how the decisions about how to educate young people after 12 years of a National Socialist dictatorship became part of a discussion about the German nation's future. more...

Price: $75.00