Russia's Long Twentieth Century: Voices, Memories, Contested Perspectives

by Choi Chatterjee, Deborah A. Field, Lisa A. Kirschenbaum

Overview

Covering the sweep of Russian history from empire to Soviet Union to post-Soviet state, this new edition of Russia's Long Twentieth Century is an accessible textbook that encourages students to start a lively conversation with Russia’s storied past.

Chronologically organized, the book moves beyond the traditional Cold War framework, situating Russian history within world history. It covers topics including state power, political ideology, economic change, and foreign policy, highlighting the perspectives of “ordinary” people and exploring the impacts of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, and generation on historical experience. Taking an inquiry-based approach, the authors show how scholars diverge sharply in their understanding of key events, historical processes, and personalities. Each chapter contains a selection of primary sources and discussion questions, engaging with the voices and experiences of diverse Soviet citizens and familiarizing students with the techniques of source criticism. The second edition features expanded coverage of the non-Russian regions of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union, adding new sections on Ukraine in particular. To help students navigate the book, the new edition also includes a timeline of key events and people, and a glossary.

With a variety of learning tools, maps, and images, this volume is an essential introduction to twentieth-century Russian history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781040358788
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/01/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	362
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Choi Chatterjee is a Professor of History Emerita at California State University, Los Angeles. Her most recent book is Russia in World History: A Transnational Approach (2022). She is writing a history of the worldly travels of the Russian Orthodox text, The Way of the Pilgrim.

Deborah A. Field was a Professor of History at Adrian College for 21 years and is now a Lecturer at the University of Michigan, interested in gender and everyday life. She is the author of Private Life and Communist Morality in Khrushchev’s Russia (2007).

Lisa A. Kirschenbaum is a Professor of History at West Chester University. Her research explores how ordinary people navigated the traumas of the twentieth century. Her most recent book is Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists: Ilf and Petrov’s American Road Trip (2024).

Table of Contents

An Introduction for Students and Instructors  1. Empire and Modernization  2. Alternative Visions on the Eve of War and Revolution  3. Constructing the Socialist Order  4. Making a New World and New People  5. Revolution from Above  6. Making Sense of Stalinism: Enthusiasm and Terror  7. The Great Fatherland War and the Origins of the Cold War  8. Cold War, Culture, and Everyday Life  9. Paradoxes of the Thaw  10. An Era of Stagnation?  11. Gorbachev and the Truth Paradox  12. Legacies of the Soviet Union: Russia since 1991

Editorial Reviews

Praise for the previous edition

"Russia’s Long Twentieth Century is perfectly suited to American undergraduate students of today. Its stress on interpretation and engagement with sources and its examination of Russian experience within the context of social and intellectual developments in Europe, America, and Asia are fresh and illuminating, a welcome advance over current textbooks. An excellent teaching tool."

David L. Ransel, Indiana University, USA

"This is a very creatively put together, well-researched and thoughtful, analytically-minded textbook on twentieth-century Russian and Soviet history. Its combination of framing questions, lively narratives and varied primary sources will make it an easy choice for anyone teaching a course on the Soviet/Russian twentieth century."

Rebecca Friedman, Florida International University, USA 

"Written by three eminent scholar-teachers of Russian and Soviet History, this inquiry-based textbook reveals how historical narratives are created and empowers students to ask and answer crucial historical questions using biographical vignettes and carefully-selected primary sources. The volume's fresh transnational approach is unique among Russian History texts and will appeal to today's students interested in questions of globalization, inequality and identity. I am deeply impressed with the volume's innovative format and carefully-considered pedagogical aims, and look forward to assigning it in my Russian history classes."

Karen Petrone, University of Kentucky, USA

From the Publisher