The Road to Communism: The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union

Chronicles the Czarist Russian Empire in the 1800s, the birth of Bolshevism, events leading to the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the development of new political structures in its aftermath.

Grade 8 Up-In the first book of a four-volume series, Gottfried addresses the events leading up to the Russian Revolution. In his colorfully written account of this seminal event-what he characterizes as a "chronicle of a dream that failed, of a utopian vision turned to ashes"-the author effectively weaves the many strands of Russian history in the 19th and early 20th centuries into a vibrant tapestry. He discusses in separate chapters the Tsars Alexander II and III, Nicolas and his wife Alexandra, Grigory Rasputin, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Aleksandr Kerensky, Joseph Stalin, and the violent interplay among the peasants, Cossacks, upper class, and Russian Jews. He also persuasively portrays the devastating effect of World War I on the Russian Empire and how it helped lead to the rise of the Stalin dictatorship. Supplemented with large, clear, and well-placed black-and-white captioned photos and reproductions and boxed quotes highlighting the narrative, this historical study untangles the Byzantine complexities of Russian history while remaining true to the facts.
Jack Forman, Mesa College Library, San Diego
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Reviewed with Ted Gottfried's The Stalinist Empire.

Gr. 8-12. Like Gottfried's excellent Holocaust series, these books are compelling, in-depth histories that chronicle the how and why of cataclysmic events and the roles of both leaders and ordinary people. These two titles are the first in a proposed four-volume set about the Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union. Gottfried writes with clarity and distance even as he narrates the dramatic details of the political conflict and the emotion of the "dream that failed." Communism describes the end of czarist tyranny and focuses on the revolution. Stalinist Empire describes the nightmare of the 30-year dictatorship up to WW II. Highly readable, the large volumes are spaciously designed, with clear type on thick, quality paper; lots of subheads; occasional photographs; and dramatic, full-page art by Reim that evokes the marching crowds in triumph and despair. Each volume has a detailed double-page map of the period, a chronology, and a glossary, and the documentation includes careful chapter notes and a brief bibliography. Hazel Rochman
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