
Lenin's Tomb
The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
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Narrated by:
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Michael Prichard
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By:
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David Remnick
About this listen
In the tradition of John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World, this best-selling account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism.
©2015 David Remnick (P)2015 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
By the 1890s, Wilmington was North Carolina’s largest city and a shining example of a mixed-race community. It was a bustling port city with a burgeoning African American middle class and a Fusionist government of Republicans and Populists that included black aldermen, police officers, and magistrates. There were successful black-owned businesses and an African American newspaper, The Record. But across the state - and the South - white supremacist Democrats were working to reverse the advances made by former slaves and their progeny.
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HOW TO GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF HOW RACISM HAS BEEN USED AS A TOOL BY WEALTHY
- By Linzay on 06-19-20
By: David Zucchino
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The Russo-Ukrainian War
- The Return of History
- By: Serhii Plokhy
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war—and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable ways? Ukrainians have resisted a superior military; the West has united, while Russia grows increasingly isolated. Serhii Plokhy, a leading historian of Ukraine and the Cold War, offers a definitive account of this conflict, its origins, course, and the already apparent and possible future consequences.
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Plokhy delivers as always!
- By Kristinka on 05-20-23
By: Serhii Plokhy
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Secondhand Time
- The Last of the Soviets
- By: Svetlana Alexievich, Bela Shayevich - translator
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin, Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbell, and others
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing "a new kind of literary genre", describing her work as "a history of emotions - a history of the soul". Alexievich's distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation.
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The Heart, Soul & Iron Fist Of Russia
- By Sara on 02-22-17
By: Svetlana Alexievich, and others
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An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa (1942-1943)
- The Liberation Trilogy, Volume 1
- By: Rick Atkinson
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 26 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and miscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson shows why no modern learner can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. That first year of the Allied war was a pivotal point in American history, the moment when the United States began to act like a great power.
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Fascinating book, great performance
- By Ted on 05-30-16
By: Rick Atkinson
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Lords of Finance
- The Bankers Who Broke the World
- By: Liaquat Ahamed
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.
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interesting insight into interwar period!
- By Toru on 11-27-09
By: Liaquat Ahamed
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The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
- Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000
- By: Paul Kennedy
- Narrated by: Peter Coates
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Spanning five centuries of history, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers offers a sweeping exploration of how nations rise to dominance and fall into decline. Paul Kennedy masterfully examines the intricate interplay between economics and strategy, revealing how shifts in wealth and resources have shaped global power dynamics from 1500 to 2000. Filled with keen insights, this groundbreaking and important work provides a compelling lens through which to understand the forces that continue to shape our modern world.
By: Paul Kennedy
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The Third Reich at War
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 35 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Evans interweaves a broad narrative of the war’s progress with viscerally affecting personal testimony from a wide range of people - from generals to front-line soldiers, from Hitler Youth activists to middle-class housewives. The Third Reich at War lays bare the dynamics of a nation more deeply immersed in war than any society before or since. Fresh insights into the conflict’s great events are here, from the invasion of Poland to the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler’s suicide in the bunker.
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Masterful
- By Karen on 09-03-10
By: Richard J. Evans
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Collapse
- The Fall of the Soviet Union
- By: Vladislav M. Zubok
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 23 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1945, the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong, 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward, the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the 20th century.
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Hopefully Not Prescient
- By Joshua on 01-29-22
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Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
- An American History
- By: Ada Ferrer
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo, Ada Ferrer - prologue
- Length: 23 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more than half a century, the stand-off continued—through the tenure of ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro. His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor Raúl Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country’s future. Spanning more than five centuries, Cuba provides us with a front-row seat as we witness the evolution of the modern nation.
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US Bash Job
- By Derek & Amber Witt on 04-14-22
By: Ada Ferrer
First, the writing itself is superb, almost lyrical at times, and covers a great deal of ground. Often a chapter will start with some individual not known to the general public and we can see through his actions the forces at work behind the scenes of larger events. The first example in the book is that of Colonel Tretetsky who was in charge of the examination of the murdered Polish soldiers near Kalinin. The examination and cataloging of what Stalin had ordered done was at the order of the Soviet government but the KGB tried to derail the examination and ordered it stopped. Through the actions of the colonel we see how average Soviet citizens reacted to events and how that gave a portrait of what was happening in the wider society.
I found every chapter full of information and extremely informative, but often it was hard to see how some of the small details added anything important to the book. Mr Remnick spends a great deal of time talking about his efforts to interview Lazar Kaganovich, the last Stalin intimate still alive at the time. While the ins and outs of his attempts to speak with him are interesting in themselves they do not add anything to the tale of the fall of the Soviet Union. Similarly Mr Remnick seems to not only have had no idea of how harmful some of his actions were during this time, but to not care. He tells the tale of how some Soviet officials, seeing where events were heading, became businessmen themselves. In one report he detailed how these officials were meeting with American businessmen and the two specific names he gave were both Jewish. The official tried to explain how such reporting added to the general anti-semitism in the Soviet Union and Mr Remnick, himself Jewish, but a protected foreigner, seems unable to understand or even care about what he has done. Such things only serve to detract from the book itself and from the author's reputation.
Aside from these detractions the book itself is very good and gives insight into what was happening at the time that was not reported in the US, and found it changed my views of both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, the former for the worse and the latter for the better. Still the book's foresight is limited and there is little indication of where the new Russian state might be headed. The book ends in the early 1990s and it seems indicative of that lack of foresight that the name Vladimir Putin never is mentioned anywhere in the book.
Mr Prichard's narration is superb and perfectly matched for the subject. I highly recommend this book, but with the understanding of its limitations.
A mixed bag
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Great book, annoying reading
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Both Educational & Enjoyable
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Great read.
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His insights, his scope of understanding and his ability to put things into perspective without getting preachy or moralizing helped me to see this part of history more clearly and allowed me to draw my own conclusions. Here is one of my conclusions: God Bless America! When I read of the extreme hardships the Russian people had to endure because of their selfish leadership I truly cried. My heart was breaking as I read of the fishermen who had boatloads of top grade salmon ready to take to market, but had to wait for approval of the government before they could bring them ashore. By that time, the fish that could have fed thousands of starving Russians had rotted. I live in a modest sized home in a fairly nice neighborhood, but I sometimes lament that there is not enough room in my house for everything I want. I was humbled when I realized that many Soviet citizens were living in an apartment the size of my walk-in closet. People who were divorced had to continue living together for years because they could not get a second apartment. Medical care was next to non-existent. And on and on. Our first world problems are sniveling and unimportant when compared with those of this sad country.
And their problems are far from resolved. Although things have improved, the crime has sky rocketed. As one person put it, "Freedom has created more Al Capones and fewer Henry Fords." I hope they can find their way out of this darkness, but i don't think it will be any time soon. It is a country with vast potential, but things must improve before they can come close to reaching it.
Michael Prichard was an excellent narrator for this book. He seemed to understand the Russian pronunciations because they rolled off his tongue with ease. I say this, but not understanding Russian myself I could be mistaken. But compared to what Russian I have heard, it seemed to be spot on.
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
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Amazing
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is to be commended for the interviewing of so many who endured the tragic decades of heartbreaking personal deprivation and losses, and reminding the reader of so many key details regarding the reign of terror begun under Lenin and worsening under Stalin. Although so many of the events of the 1960’s and forward occurred during my young adulthood, I am ashamed to admit I had no clue as to the continual ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ which was occurring throughout the Soviet Union at a time when evidently the West had little care or concern for life in the Soviet Union. Many of us living today were children during the Cold War, the era of the Iron Curtain, and the greatly feared nuclear threats from our enemy, the Soviet Union, but to realize the extreme cruel conditions and deprivation under which the common people were forced to exist was definitely off my radar, and this book has been a massive revelation.
The author’s account of events leading up to the coup that eventually brought down Gorbachev was just riveting, and even knowing the outcome in advance did little to quell the suspense surrounding this great historical event.
I had begun by reading the printed word, but thankfully had the good sense to switch to Audible. How beautifully the book has been rendered by Michael Prichard whose fluent pronunciation of Russian names and places have made me realize how melodic the language; I regret not studying it for
a second language.
To receive merit, a book of any genre should leave its reader richer and better for having read it. Because of this outstanding book, I have a newfound interest and concern for the peoples of all those former Soviet countries who have borne suffering, enslavement, and cultural loss and as of yet still have little to nothing to have replaced the dismal status quo of a failed experiment in socialism.
A recurring thought as I was listening to the book was that all the dissident students on our college campuses should be required to read or listen to “Lenin’s Tomb;” perhaps they might have a greater appreciation of what it means to live in a free country with personal liberties versus the collectivist world of Communism, a failed ideology from which Russia is still in the throes of recovering.
A most compelling narrative of the fall of the Soviet Empire
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Fascinating
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- Arseny Roginsky, quoted in David Remnick, Lenin's Tomb
While Remnick was writing for the Washington Post in Moscow, my family was living in Izmir, Turkey and then in Bitburg, Germany. We got the opportunity to travel to Moscow shortly after the August, 1991 (the beginning of my Senior year) Coup. It was a strange period. So much changed so fast. I was trading my Levi jeans in St. Petersburg and Moscow for Communist flags, Army medals, busts of Lenin. It was only as I got older that I realized both how crazy the USSR/Russia was during that time and how blessed the Washington Post was to have David Remnick writing "home" about it.
I've read other books by Remnick (The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama and King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero, and parts of Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker). The New Yorker is where I discovered and fell in love with his prose. So, with Remnick, I was reading backwards. It was time I read what is perhaps his greatest work. Lenin's Tomb is a comprehensive look at the last years of the Soviet Union from the election of Gorbachev (with occasional backward glances at Khrushchev, etc. It was nice to get more information about Andrei Sakharov (I knew only broad aspects of his story, and still need to read more) and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (I know more about him, but need to read more of his work).
Some of this isn't dated. No. That is the wrong word. It is history, and by definition all history is dated, but the book ends with a lot of potential energy. It is sad to see that a lot of the potential for Russia's democracy has been lost into the authoritarianism of Putin. It is also scary to read quotes from Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and unabaashed neofacists who won 8 million votes in 1991, and hear words that could easily have been spoken by Donald Trump. Nations and regimes are never as solid as we think. Often the corruption that exists for years, like a cavity, eats away at the insitutions until they become empty husks and everything colapses. Perhaps, that is one lesson WE in the United States (and Europe) should learn from the Soviet Union's collapse in the early 90s. Perhaps, it is too late.
Society is sick of history. It is too much with us
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Heartbreaking, riveting
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