Robert Service is a Fellow of the British Academy and Emeritus Professor of Russian History at the University of Oxford.
In this incisive study, Service surveys the varieties of communist
ideologies (from Marx to Marcuse) and regimes (the Soviet Union
getting the lion's share of attention) and finds a coherent
pattern, which he forthrightly labels totalitarianism… In his
fluent narrative style, Service covers a lot of ground… Though
bound to be controversial, his is an engaging and useful
introduction to a world-shaking movement.
*Publishers Weekly*
Service critically surveys communism's entire history for a
general-interest readership… A panoramic introduction to the
ideology, Service's account of communism's idealists and tyrants
provides solid grounding in the subject.
*Booklist*
To the best of my knowledge, Robert Service's Comrades! is the
first history of world communism. It includes every communist
state, extinct and surviving, as well as major communist parties
and movements around the world. It is a daunting undertaking that
required mastery of vast amounts of source materials and the skill
to make judicious choices among them… A rich repository of
information and insight and should be required reading in
institutions of higher education around the world.
*New York Sun*
The book succeeds in explaining what all the fuss was about,
something that a whole generation that has grown up in the
aftermath of communism's collapse needs to know.
*St. Petersburg Times*
[A] brilliantly distilled world history of communism.
*Mail on Sunday*
The decency of communism's ideals and the horror of its effects
form the basis of Robert Service's masterly handling of the
beginning, progress and (all but) end of communism. Service sees
the miseries and tyranny which communists fought against; and he
allows credit where it is due, as when he writes of Castro's regime
that 'the poor of the island benefited most from the revolution.
Blacks in particular were helped by government efforts to improve
conditions.'
*Financial Times*
Robert Service's Comrades! is a timely and ambitious book.
Embroiled as we are with Islamic terrorism, the 20th-century
struggle between world communism and western capitalism seems as
remote now as the 1914 rivalries of kings and emperors must have
seemed in 1945. But this was an equally desperate battle for ideas
and power. Service strips away the illusions about communism that
beguiled generations of admirers. From the moment in 1917 when
Lenin forced the disparate revolutionary parties in Russia under
his sway, communism became a system based on state terror and the
dictatorship of elites in the name of the proletariat.
*The Observer*
Service has produced a wide-ranging history that traces communism's
intellectual origins back through early modern Europe to ancient
Greece as well as its modern spread to countries covering a third
of the earth's surface… One of the best-ever studies of his
subject… Eschewing the usual convoluted language of Marxist
debates, he provides a gripping account of communism's intellectual
origins, pedigree and impact… A remarkable accomplishment, and
worrying reading. Even though Soviet communism as an idea may have
failed, its interaction with the Russian population contains a
powerful warning… A reader emerges from Mr Service's volume with
the sobering conviction that the only enduring means of preventing
political extremism is to establish and maintain healthy
institutions of civil society: a tall order indeed.
*The Economist*
Service has taken [on] a huge subject but he more than succeeds in
doing it justice in this sparkling and thought-provoking narrative…
[An] engrossing history.
*Literary Review*
Service has read widely—using the extensive archives and poster
collection of Stanford University's Hoover Institution to good
effect—and he has organised his material in an analytical narrative
that sweeps the reader along for 500 pages.
*Sunday Telegraph*
In Comrades!, Robert Service presents a lively and detailed account
of the damage that was done in the name of 'building socialism'… He
lucidly explains how the Bolsheviks gradually imposed their will on
an impoverished and often resentful populace.
*Democracy Journal*
[A] welcome comprehensive volume narrating the history of world
communism.
*Choice*
In this incisive study, Service surveys the varieties of communist
ideologies (from Marx to Marcuse) and regimes (the Soviet Union
getting the lion's share of attention) and finds a coherent
pattern, which he forthrightly labels totalitarianism... In his
fluent narrative style, Service covers a lot of ground... Though
bound to be controversial, his is an engaging and useful
introduction to a world-shaking movement. * Publishers Weekly *
Service critically surveys communism's entire history for a
general-interest readership... A panoramic introduction to the
ideology, Service's account of communism's idealists and tyrants
provides solid grounding in the subject. -- Gilbert Taylor *
Booklist *
To the best of my knowledge, Robert Service's Comrades! is
the first history of world communism. It includes every communist
state, extinct and surviving, as well as major communist parties
and movements around the world. It is a daunting undertaking that
required mastery of vast amounts of source materials and the skill
to make judicious choices among them... A rich repository of
information and insight and should be required reading in
institutions of higher education around the world. -- Paul
Hollander * New York Sun *
The book succeeds in explaining what all the fuss was about,
something that a whole generation that has grown up in the
aftermath of communism's collapse needs to know. -- Lewis H.
Siegelbaum * St. Petersburg Times *
[A] brilliantly distilled world history of communism. -- Craig
Brown * Mail on Sunday *
The decency of communism's ideals and the horror of its effects
form the basis of Robert Service's masterly handling of the
beginning, progress and (all but) end of communism. Service sees
the miseries and tyranny which communists fought against; and he
allows credit where it is due, as when he writes of Castro's regime
that 'the poor of the island benefited most from the revolution.
Blacks in particular were helped by government efforts to improve
conditions.' -- John Lloyd * Financial Times *
Robert Service's Comrades! is a timely and ambitious book.
Embroiled as we are with Islamic terrorism, the 20th-century
struggle between world communism and western capitalism seems as
remote now as the 1914 rivalries of kings and emperors must have
seemed in 1945. But this was an equally desperate battle for ideas
and power. Service strips away the illusions about communism that
beguiled generations of admirers. From the moment in 1917 when
Lenin forced the disparate revolutionary parties in Russia under
his sway, communism became a system based on state terror and the
dictatorship of elites in the name of the proletariat. -- Tim
Gardam * The Observer *
Service has produced a wide-ranging history that traces communism's
intellectual origins back through early modern Europe to ancient
Greece as well as its modern spread to countries covering a third
of the earth's surface... One of the best-ever studies of his
subject... Eschewing the usual convoluted language of Marxist
debates, he provides a gripping account of communism's intellectual
origins, pedigree and impact... A remarkable accomplishment, and
worrying reading. Even though Soviet communism as an idea may have
failed, its interaction with the Russian population contains a
powerful warning... A reader emerges from Mr Service's volume with
the sobering conviction that the only enduring means of preventing
political extremism is to establish and maintain healthy
institutions of civil society: a tall order indeed. * The Economist
*
Service has taken [on] a huge subject but he more than succeeds in
doing it justice in this sparkling and thought-provoking
narrative... [An] engrossing history. -- Richard Overy * Literary
Review *
Service has read widely-using the extensive archives and poster
collection of Stanford University's Hoover Institution to good
effect-and he has organised his material in an analytical narrative
that sweeps the reader along for 500 pages. -- Michael Burleigh *
Sunday Telegraph *
In Comrades!, Robert Service presents a lively and detailed
account of the damage that was done in the name of 'building
socialism'... He lucidly explains how the Bolsheviks gradually
imposed their will on an impoverished and often resentful populace.
-- Michael Kazin * Democracy Journal *
[A] welcome comprehensive volume narrating the history of world
communism. -- G. A. McBeath * Choice *
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
