A 2022 BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: Sunday Times * Irish Times * Spectator * Financial Times *
Telegraph * Aspects of History 'The history book you need if you want to understand modern
Russia' ANNE APPLEBAUM 'A magnificent magisterial thousand year history of Russia . . . by
one of the masters of Russian scholarship' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE ' A great historian at the
peak of his powers' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE '[An] excellent short study' MAX HASTINGS SUNDAY TIMES
' If you really want to understand Putin's Russia today anchored in its past of myths then
you simply have to read Figes's superb account ' ANTONY BEEVOR ' A lucid chronological
journey that ably illustrates how narratives from the nation's past have been used to shape its
autocratic present' OBSERVER 'A valuable instructive overview' INDEPENDENT
------------------------- From the great storyteller of Russia a spellbinding account of the
stories that have shaped the country's past - and how they can inform its present. No other
country has been so divided over its own past as Russia. None has changed its story so often.
How the Russians came to tell their story and to reinvent it as they went along is a vital
aspect of their history their culture and beliefs. To understand what Russia's future holds -
to grasp what Putin's regime means for Russia and the world - we need to unravel the ideas and
meanings of that history. In The Story of Russia Orlando Figes brings into sharp relief the
vibrant characters that comprise Russia's rich history and whose stories remain so important
in making sense of the world's largest nation today - from the crowning of sixteen-year-old
Ivan the Terrible in a candlelit cathedral to Catherine the Great riding out in a green
uniform to arrest her husband at his palace to the bitter last days of the Romanovs.
Beautifully written and based on a lifetime of scholarship The Story of Russia is a major and
definitive work from the great storyteller of Russian history: sweeping suspenseful
masterful. ------------------------- PRAISE FOR ORLANDO FIGES ' An outstanding historian
and writer he brings distant history so close that you could feel its heartbeat ' KARL OVE
KNAUSGAARD 'Figes knows more about Russia than any other historian' MAX HASTINGS SUNDAY
TIMES
