Promotional Information

The unrivalled, definitive history beautifully reissued with a new introduction for the 100th anniversary

About the Author

Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. Born in London in 1959, he was previously a Lecturer in History and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. A People's Tragedy received the Wolfson Prize, the NCR Book Award, the W.H. Smith Literary Award, the Longman/History Today Book Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He is the author of many other books on Russian history including Natasha's Dance- A Cultural History of Russia, The Whisperers- Private life in Stalin's Russia, Crimea- the Last Crusade and Just Send Me Word- A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag.

Reviews

A modern masterpiece -- Andrew Marr
Combines dramatic power, absorbing narrative and magisterial scholarship - a magnificent tour de force -- Christopher Andrew * Sunday Telegraph *
The most moving account of the Russian Revolution since Doctor Zhivago -- Lucasta Miller * Independent *
This book is not just a history; it is an item of history -- Neal Ascherson * Independent on Sunday *
A People's Tragedy will do more to help us understand the Russian Revolution than any other book I know -- Eric Hobsbawm * London Review of Books *
Orlando Figes's chronicle of the final days of Tsarism and the violent Bolshevism that arose from its ruins is an epic in size, scope and insight, and a classic in its genre... A People's Tragedy succeeds most in capturing the sheer popular immensity of the upheavals in 1917-18, with all of Russia rising up first against the Tsar and then, with the onset of civil war, against itself. With its perfect balance of analysis and anecdote, A People's Tragedy is surely among the most readable books on the Russian Revolution and the decades of tumult that made it possible - or inevitable -- Brad Davies * Independent *