Robert William Service wordt gevierd als een dichter van het Noorden, wiens werk de wilde schoonheid en het ruige leven van de Klondike oproept. Geïnspireerd door het landschap en lokale verhalen, ving Service de geest van avontuur en het tijdperk. Zijn poëzie, vaak gekenmerkt door een sterk ritme en levendige beelden, trekt lezers mee naar de wereld van de goudkoorts en de ongetemde wildernis. Zijn onderscheidende stijl en thematische focus hebben zijn nalatenschap in de Noordelijke literatuur gevestigd.
The collection showcases beloved ballads by Robert Service, celebrated for capturing the spirit of the North. Illustrated with vibrant art by Marilen Van Nimwegen, it includes iconic works like "The Cremation of Sam McGee," reflecting Service's deep connection to the region during his time in Whitehorse. Known for his prolific writing into his eighties, Service's creative process was inspired by simple walks, leading to the spontaneous creation of poetry.
The highly acclaimed biography of the terrifying and fascinating Russian leader, Stalin, written by one of our greatest contemporary historians of Russia and author of the bestselling Trotsky, Lenin and Comrades.
Russia's recent past has encompassed revolution, civil war, mass terror and two world wars, and the country is still undergoing huge change. In his acclaimed history, now updated to 2009, Robert Service provides a superb panoramic viewpoint on Russia, exploring the complex, changing interaction between rulers and ruled from Nicholas II, Lenin and Stalin through to Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin and beyond. This new edition also discusses Russia�s unresolved economic and social difficulties and its determination to regain its leading role on the world stage and explains how, despite the recent years of de-communization, the seven decades of communist rule which penetrated every aspect of life still continue to influence Russia today.
Revolutionary practitioner, theorist, factional chief, sparkling writer, ladies man (e.g., his affair with Frieda Kahlo), icon of the Revolution, anti-Jewish Jew, philosopher of everyday life, grand seigneur of his household, father and hunted victim, Trotsky lived a brilliant life in extraordinary times. Robert Service draws on hitherto unexamined archives and on his profound understanding of Russian history to draw a portrait of the man and his legacy, revealing that though his followers have represented Trotsky as a pure revolutionary soul and a powerful intellect unjustly hounded into exile by Stalin and his henchmen. The reality is very different, as this masterful and compelling biography reveals.
In March 1917, Nicholas II, the last Tsar of All the Russias, abdicated and the dynasty that had ruled an empire for three hundred years was forced from power by revolution. Now, on the hundredth anniversary of that revolution, Robert Service, the eminent historian of Russia, examines Nicholas's reign in the year before his abdication and the months between that momentous date and his death, with his family, in Ekaterinburg in July 1918. The story has been told many times, but Service's profound understanding of the period and his forensic examination of hitherto untapped sources, including the Tsar's diaries and recorded conversations, shed remarkable new light on his reign, also revealing the kind of ruler Nicholas believed himself to have been, contrary to the disastrous reality. The Last of the Tsars is a masterful study of a man who was almost entirely out of his depth, perhaps even willfully so. It is also a compelling account of the social, economic and political foment in Russia in the aftermath of Alexander Kerensky's February Revolution, the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and the beginnings of Lenin's Soviet republic.
A riveting account of Vladimir Putin's rule since his return to the Russian presidency in 2012.
Lenin is a colossal figure whose influence on 20th-century history cannot be underestimated. This biography makes use of archive material to piece together his private as well as public life in an effort to give a complete picture of Lenin.
This popular, concise and approachable text discusses the key debates and themes surrounding the Russian Revolution. The expanded fourth edition has been thoroughly revised and updated in the light of the latest research, and now features a new scene-setting Introduction and maps.
"In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, the Western powers were anxious to prevent the spread of Bolshevism across Europe. Lenin and Trotsky were equally anxious that the Communist vision they were busy introducing in Russia should do just that. But neither side knew anything about the other. The revolution and Russia's withdrawal from the First World War had ensured a diplomatic exodus from Moscow and the usual routes to vital information had been closed off. Into this void stepped an extraordinary collection of opportunists, journalists and spies -- sometimes indeed journalists who were spies and vice versa: in Moscow Britain's Arthur Ransome, the American John Reed and Sidney Reilly -- 'Ace of Spies' -- all traded information and brokered deals between Russia and the West; in Berlin, Paris and London, the likes of Maxim Litvinov, Adolf Ioffe and Kamenev tried to infiltrate the political elite and influence foreign policy to the Bolsheviks' advantage. Robert Service, acclaimed historian and one of our finest commentators on matters Soviet, turns his meticulous eye to this ragtag group of people and, with narrative flair and impeccable research, reveals one of the great untold stories of the twentieth century. --Amazon.com.
The great historian of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Russia returns with an enthralling revisionist history of the Russian Revolution.