This work presents a trans-Siberian expedition to rediscover the peoples, cultures and riches of Russia's eastern frontiers. It addresses such questions as: who are the people of the region?; have they a distinct culture?; and does the area have a future as part of the Pacific Rim?

The most globally integrated book in the field, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart is unmatched in helping students draw clear comparisons and connections across time and place. A new AP (R) part structure and strong chapter pedagogy supports student comprehension and close reading skills. The Second AP (R) Edition offers even more opportunities for students to practice the historical thinking skills and reasoning processes with an AP (R) World History Skills Handbook and AP (R)-style questions and writing prompts throughout the book. Additional practice is provided online with our interactive History Skills Tutorials and Norton InQuizitive for History-the popular, award-winning, adaptive quizzing tool.

A SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 'A brilliant, compelling, propulsively written, magnificent tour de force' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard 'The second volume of what will surely rank as one of the greatest historical achievements of our age ... The War and Peace of history: a book you fear you will never finish, but just cannot put down' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times Well before 1929, Stalin had achieved dictatorial power over the Soviet empire, but now he decided that the largest peasant economy in the world would be transformed into socialist modernity, whatever it took. What it took, and what Stalin managed to force through, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways. Rather than a tale of a deformed or paranoid personality creating a political system, this is a story of a political system shaping a personality. Building and running a dictatorship, with power of life or death over hundreds of millions, in conditions of capitalist self-encirclement, made Stalin the person he became. Wholesale collectivization of agriculture, some 120 million peasants, necessitated levels of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, but Stalin did not flinch; the resulting mass starvation and death elicited criticism inside the party even from those Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism. By 1934, when the situation had stabilized and socialism had been built in the countryside too, the internal praise came for his uncanny success in anticapitalist terms. But Stalin never forgot and never forgave, with bloody consequences as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite. Stalin had revived a great power with a formidable industrialized military. But the Soviet Union was effectively alone, with no allies and enemies perceived everywhere. The quest to find security would bring Soviet Communism into an improbable pact with Nazi Germany. But that bargain did not work out as envisioned. The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates of their respective countries, drew ever closer to collision. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler: 1929-1941 is, like its predecessor Stalin: Paradoxes of Power: 1878-1928, nothing less than a history of the world from Stalin's desk. It is also, like its predecessor, a landmark achievement in the annals of the biographer's art. Kotkin's portrait captures the vast structures moving global events, and the intimate details of decision-making.

The railways of Manchuria offer an intriguing vantage point for an international history of northeast Asia. Before the completion of the Trans-Siberian railway in 1916, the only rail route from the Imperial Russian capital of St. Petersburg to the Pacific port of Vladivostok transited Manchuria. A spur line from the Manchurian city of Harbin led south to ice-free Port Arthur. Control of these two rail lines gave Imperial Russia military, economic, and political advantages that excited rivalry on the part of Japan and unease on the part of weak and divided China. Meanwhile, the effort to defend and retain that strategic hold against rising Japanese power strained distant Moscow. Control of the Manchurian railways was contested in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5; Japan's 1931 invasion and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo; the second Sino-Japanese War and World War II in Asia; and, the Chinese civil war that culminated in the Communist victory over the Nationalists. Today, the railways are critical to plans for development of China's sparsely populated interior. This volume brings together an international group of scholars to explore this fascinating history.

The railways of Manchuria offer an intriguing vantage point for an international history of northeast Asia. Before the completion of the Trans-Siberian railway in 1916, the only rail route from the Imperial Russian capital of St. Petersburg to the Pacific port of Vladivostok transited Manchuria. A spur line from the Manchurian city of Harbin led south to ice-free Port Arthur. Control of these two rail lines gave Imperial Russia military, economic, and political advantages that excited rivalry on the part of Japan and unease on the part of weak and divided China. Meanwhile, the effort to defend and retain that strategic hold against rising Japanese power strained distant Moscow. Control of the Manchurian railways was contested in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5; Japan's 1931 invasion and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo; the second Sino-Japanese War and World War II in Asia; and, the Chinese civil war that culminated in the Communist victory over the Nationalists. Today, the railways are critical to plans for development of China's sparsely populated interior. This volume brings together an international group of scholars to explore this fascinating history.

The common images of Korea view the peninsula as a long-standing battleground for outside powers and the Cold War's last divided state. But, Korea's location at the very center of Northeast Asia gives it a pivotal role in the economic integration of the region and the dynamic development of its more powerful neighbors. A great wave of economic expansion, driven first by the Japanese miracle and then by the ascent of China, has made South Korea - an economic powerhouse in its own right - the hub of the region once again, a natural corridor for railroads and energy pipelines linking Asiatic Russia to China and Japan. And, over the horizon, an opening of North Korea, with multilateral support, would add another major push toward regional integration. Illuminating the role of the Korean peninsula in three modern historical periods, the eminent international contributors to this volume offer a fresh and stimulating appraisal of Korea as the key to the coalescence of a broad, open Northeast Asian regionalism in the twenty-fifth century.

The common images of Korea view the peninsula as a long-standing battleground for outside powers and the Cold War's last divided state. But, Korea's location at the very center of Northeast Asia gives it a pivotal role in the economic integration of the region and the dynamic development of its more powerful neighbors. A great wave of economic expansion, driven first by the Japanese miracle and then by the ascent of China, has made South Korea - an economic powerhouse in its own right - the hub of the region once again, a natural corridor for railroads and energy pipelines linking Asiatic Russia to China and Japan. And, over the horizon, an opening of North Korea, with multilateral support, would add another major push toward regional integration. Illuminating the role of the Korean peninsula in three modern historical periods, the eminent international contributors to this volume offer a fresh and stimulating appraisal of Korea as the key to the coalescence of a broad, open Northeast Asian regionalism in the twenty-fifth century.

The remote vastness of Mongolia has remained somewhat of a mystery to most Westerners - no less so in the 20th century. Homeland of the legendary conqueror Chingiz Khan, in modern times Mongolia itself has been the object of imperial rivalry. For most of the 20th century it was under Soviet domination. Mikhail Gorbachev began the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Mongolia in 1989, a process completed in 1992. By 1996 a coalition of opposition parties triumphed in national elections, and Mongolia launched itself on a new course. It is perhaps the most intriguing of the post-community "transition" societies. This volume examines Mongol history over the past century, embracing not only Mongolia proper but also Mongol communities in Russia and China. Contributions, based on new archival research and the latest fieldwork, are from the world's top experts in the field - including four authors from Mongolia and others from Japan, Russia, Taiwan, Great Britain and the United States. Stephen Kotkin's introductory chapter is an overview of Mongol studies. The essays in part 1 examine Sino-Russian competition over Outer Mongolia. Part 2 looks at international diplomacy in Mongolia, including the role of Japan. Part 3 focuses on contemporary issues ranging from economic and cultural change to emergent elites. A concluding essay surveys Mongolian foreign policy.

The remote vastness of Mongolia has remained somewhat of a mystery to most Westerners - no less so in the 20th century. Homeland of the legendary conqueror Chingiz Khan, in modern times Mongolia itself has been the object of imperial rivalry. For most of the 20th century it was under Soviet domination. Mikhail Gorbachev began the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Mongolia in 1989, a process completed in 1992. By 1996 a coalition of opposition parties triumphed in national elections, and Mongolia launched itself on a new course. It is perhaps the most intriguing of the post-community "transition" societies. This volume examines Mongol history over the past century, embracing not only Mongolia proper but also Mongol communities in Russia and China. Contributions, based on new archival research and the latest fieldwork, are from the world's top experts in the field - including four authors from Mongolia and others from Japan, Russia, Taiwan, Great Britain and the United States. Stephen Kotkin's introductory chapter is an overview of Mongol studies. The essays in part 1 examine Sino-Russian competition over Outer Mongolia. Part 2 looks at international diplomacy in Mongolia, including the role of Japan. Part 3 focuses on contemporary issues ranging from economic and cultural change to emergent elites. A concluding essay surveys Mongolian foreign policy.

China shares borders with 20 other countries. Each of these neighbors has its own national interests, and in some cases, these include territorial and maritime jurisdictional claims in places that China also claims. Most of these 20 countries have had a history of border conflicts with China; some of them never amicably settled. This book brings together some of the foremost historians, geographers, political scientists, and legal scholars on modern Asia to examine each of China's twenty land or sea borders.

China shares borders with 20 other countries. Each of these neighbors has its own national interests, and in some cases, these include territorial and maritime jurisdictional claims in places that China also claims. Most of these 20 countries have had a history of border conflicts with China; some of them never amicably settled. This book brings together some of the foremost historians, geographers, political scientists, and legal scholars on modern Asia to examine each of China's twenty land or sea borders.

This book takes stock of arguments about the historical legacies of communism that have become common within the study of Russia and East Europe more than two decades after communism's demise and elaborates an empirical approach to the study of historical legacies revolving around relationships and mechanisms rather than correlation and outward similarities. Eleven essays by a distinguished group of scholars assess whether post-communist developments in specific areas continue to be shaped by the experience of communism or, alternatively, by fundamental divergences produced before or after communism. Chapters deal with the variable impact of the communist experience on post-communist societies in such areas as regime trajectories and democratic political values; patterns of regional and sectoral economic development; property ownership within the energy sector; the functioning of the executive branch of government, the police, and courts; the relationship of religion to the state; government language policies; and informal relationships and practices.

In January 1928 Stalin, the ruler of the largest country in the world, boarded a train bound for Siberia where he would embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He was about to begin uprooting and collectivization of agriculture and industry across the entire Soviet Union. Millions would die, and many more would suffer. Where did such great, monstrous power come from? The first of three volumes, the product of a decade of intrepid research, this landmark book offers the most convincing explanation yet of Stalin's power.

A magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understanding of Stalin and his world The product of a decade of intrepid research, Stalin is a landmark achievement. Stephen Kotkin offers a biography that, at long last, is equal to this shrewd, sociopathic, charismatic dictator in all his dimensions. We see a man inclined to despotism who could be utterly charming; a pragmatic ideologue; a leader who obsessed over slights yet was a precocious geostrategic thinker-unique among Bolsheviks-and yet who made egregious strategic blunders. Through it all, we see Stalin's unflinching persistence, his sheer force of will-perhaps the ultimate key to understanding his indelible mark on history. Drawing on Kotkin's exhaustive study of Soviet archival materials as well as vast scholarly literature, Stalin recasts the way we think about the Soviet Union, revolution, dictatorship, the twentieth century, and indeed the art of history itself.

"Monumental." -The New York Times Book Review Pulitzer Prize-finalist Stephen Kotkin has written the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror to the conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern world history In 1929, Joseph Stalin, having already achieved dictatorial power over the vast Soviet Empire, formally ordered the systematic conversion of the world's largest peasant economy into "socialist modernity," otherwise known as collectivization, regardless of the cost. What it cost, and what Stalin ruthlessly enacted, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways. Building and running a dictatorship, with life and death power over hundreds of millions, made Stalin into the uncanny figure he became. Stephen Kotkin's Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 is the story of how a political system forged an unparalleled personality and vice versa. The wholesale collectivization of some 120 million peasants necessitated levels of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, and the resulting mass starvation elicited criticism inside the party even from those Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism. But Stalin did not flinch. By 1934, when the Soviet Union had stabilized and socialism had been implanted in the countryside, praise for his stunning anti-capitalist success came from all quarters. Stalin, however, never forgave and never forgot, with shocking consequences as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite of young strivers like himself. Stalin's obsessions drove him to execute nearly a million people, including the military leadership, diplomatic and intelligence officials, and innumerable leading lights in culture. While Stalin revived a great power, building a formidable industrialized military, the Soviet Union was effectively alone and surrounded by perceived enemies. The quest for security would bring Soviet Communism to a shocking and improbable pact with Nazi Germany. But that bargain would not unfold as envisioned. The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates of their respective dictatorships, drew ever closer to collision, as the world hung in the balance. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 is a history of the world during the build-up to its most fateful hour, from the vantage point of Stalin's seat of power. It is a landmark achievement in the annals of historical scholarship, and in the art of biography.

Featuring extensive revisions to the text as well as a new introduction and epilogue--bringing the book completely up to date on the tumultuous politics of the previous decade and the long-term implications of the Soviet collapse--this compact, original, and engaging book offers the definitive account of one of the great historical events of the last fifty years.
Combining historical and geopolitical analysis with an absorbing narrative, Kotkin draws upon extensive research, including memoirs by dozens of insiders and senior figures, to illuminate the factors that led to the demise of Communism and the USSR. The new edition puts the collapse in the context of the global economic and political changes from the 1970s to the present day. Kotkin creates a compelling profile of post Soviet Russia and he reminds us, with chilling immediacy, of what could not have been predicted--that the world's largest police state, with several million troops, a doomsday arsenal, and an appalling record of violence, would liquidate itself with barely a whimper. Throughout the book, Kotkin also paints vivid portraits of key personalities. Using recently released archive materials, for example, he offers a fascinating picture of Gorbachev, describing this virtuoso tactician and resolutely committed reformer as "flabbergasted by the fact that his socialist renewal was leading to the system's liquidation"--and more or less going along with it.
At once authoritative and provocative, Armageddon Averted illuminates the collapse of the Soviet Union, revealing how "principled restraint and scheming self interest brought a deadly system to meek dissolution."
Acclaim for the First Edition:
"Theclearest picture we have to date of the post-Soviet landscape."
--The New Yorker
"A triumph of the art of contemporary history. In fewer than 200 pagesKotkin elucidates the implosion of the Soviet empire--the most important and startling series of international events of the past fifty years--and clearly spells out why, thanks almost entirely to the 'principal restraint' of the Soviet leadership, that collapse didn't result in a cataclysmic war, as all experts had long forecasted."
-The Atlantic Monthly
"Concise and persuasive The mystery, for Kotkin, is not so much why the Soviet Union collapsed as why it did so with so little collateral damage."
--The New York Review of Books

Using the authorized English translation, edited and annotated by Engels, this edition features an extensive and provocative Introduction by historian Malia and a new Afterword by Kotkin. Revised reissue.

In this lively and fast-paced study, two distinguished Princeton historians, Stephen Kotkin and Jan Gross, analyze the 1989 revolution in Eastern Europe as a product of the political bankruptcy of 'uncivil society', meaning the communist elite.

This study is the first of its kind: a street-level inside account of what Stalinism meant to the masses of ordinary people who lived it. Stephen Kotkin was the first American in 45 years to be allowed into Magnitogorsk, a city built in response to Stalin's decision to transform the predominantly agricultural nation into a 'country of metal'. With unique access to previously untapped archives and interviews, Kotkin forges a vivid and compelling account of the impact of industrialization on a single urban community. Kotkin argues that Stalinism offered itself as an opportunity for enlightenment. The utopia it proffered, socialism, would be a new civilization based on the repudiation of capitalism. The extent to which the citizenry participated in this scheme and the relationship of the state's ambitions to the dreams of ordinary people form the substance of this fascinating story. Kotkin tells it deftly, with a remarkable understanding of the social and political system, as well as a keen instinct for the details of everyday life. Kotkin depicts a whole range of life: from the blast furnace workers who labored in the enormous iron and steel plant, to the families who struggled with the shortage of housing and services. Thematically organized and closely focused, "Magnetic Mountain" signals the beginning of a new stage in the writing of Soviet social history.

Featuring extensive revisions to the text as well as a new introduction and epilogue--bringing the book completely up to date on the tumultuous politics of the previous decade and the long-term implications of the Soviet collapse--this compact, original, and engaging book offers the definitive account of one of the great historical events of the last fifty years.
Combining historical and geopolitical analysis with an absorbing narrative, Kotkin draws upon extensive research, including memoirs by dozens of insiders and senior figures, to illuminate the factors that led to the demise of Communism and the USSR. The new edition puts the collapse in the context of the global economic and political changes from the 1970s to the present day. Kotkin creates a compelling profile of post Soviet Russia and he reminds us, with chilling immediacy, of what could not have been predicted--that the world's largest police state, with several million troops, a doomsday arsenal, and an appalling record of violence, would liquidate itself with barely a whimper. Throughout the book, Kotkin also paints vivid portraits of key personalities. Using recently released archive materials, for example, he offers a fascinating picture of Gorbachev, describing this virtuoso tactician and resolutely committed reformer as "flabbergasted by the fact that his socialist renewal was leading to the system's liquidation"--and more or less going along with it.
At once authoritative and provocative, Armageddon Averted illuminates the collapse of the Soviet Union, revealing how "principled restraint and scheming self-interest brought a deadly system to meek dissolution."
Acclaim for the First Edition:
"The clearest picture we have to date of the post-Soviet landscape."
--The New Yorker
"A triumph of the art of contemporary history. In fewer than 200 pagesKotkin elucidates the implosion of the Soviet empire--the most important and startling series of international events of the past fifty years--and clearly spells out why, thanks almost entirely to the 'principal restraint' of the Soviet leadership, that collapse didn't result in a cataclysmic war, as all experts had long forecasted."
-The Atlantic Monthly
"Concise and persuasive The mystery, for Kotkin, is not so much why the Soviet Union collapsed as why it did so with so little collateral damage."
--The New York Review of Books

Is there a sharp dividing line separating Europe into East and West? This volume brings together prominent scholars from the United States, France, Poland, and Russia to examine the evolution of the conception of Europe over the two centuries since the French Revolution. Inspired by the ideas of Martin Malia, Evtuhov and Kotkin take a flexible view of the cultural gradient of ideas throughout Europe, examining the emergence, interaction, and reception of ideas in different places. The essays address three dimensions of the cultural gradient: the history of ideas, regimes and political practices, and the contemporary political and intellectual scene. In exploring the movement of ideas across Europe, The Cultural Gradient brings a new historical perspective to the field of European studies.

No one, not even Mikhail Gorbachev, anticipated what was in store when the Soviet Union embarked in the 1980s on a radical course of long-overdue structural reform. The consequences of that momentous decision, which set in motion a transformation eventually affecting the entire postwar world order, are here chronicled from inside a previously forbidden Soviet city, Magnitogorsk. Built under Stalin and championed by him as a showcase of socialism, the city remained closed to Western scrutiny until four years ago, when Stephen Kotkin became the first American to live there in nearly half a century.
An uncommonly perceptive observer, a gifted writer, and a first-rate social scientist, Kotkin offers the reader an unsurpassed portrait of daily life in the Gorbachev era. From the formation of "informal" political groups to the start-up of fledgling businesses in the new cooperative sector, from the no-holds-barred investigative reporting of a former Communist party mouthpiece to a freewheeling multicandidate election campaign, the author conveys the texture of contemporary Soviet society in the throes of an upheaval not seen since the 1930s.
Magnitogorsk, a planned "garden city" in the Ural Mountains, serves as Kotkin's laboratory for observing the revolutionary changes occurring in the Soviet Union today. Dominated by a self-perpetuating Communist party machine, choked by industrial pollution, and haunted by a suppressed past, this once-proud city now faces an uncertain future, as do the more than one thousand other industrial cities throughout the Soviet Union.
Kotkin made his remarkable first visit in 1987 and returned in 1989. On both occasions, steelworkers and schoolteachers, bus drivers and housewives, intellectuals and former victims of oppression--all willingly stepped forward to voice long-suppressed grievances and aspirations. Their words animate this moving narrative, the first to examine the impact and contradictions of "perestroika" in a single community. Like no other Soviet city, Magnitogorsk provides a window onto the desperate struggle to overcome the heavy burden of Stalin's legacy.

This book, based on two international conferences at Princeton University and the Central European University, is a handy guide to the problem of corruption in transition countries, with an important comparative content. Political Corruption in Transition is distinguished from similar publications by at least two features: by the quality of the carefully selected and edited essays ans by its original treatment. Instead of the usual preaching and excommunications, this Sceptic's Handbook represents down-to-earth realism. Combines general issues with case studies and original research. The geographic coverage is wide, though it is ideas rather then a geography that drive the volume's organization.