How Russia Shaped the Modern World: From Art to Anti-Semitism, Ballet to Bolshevism

(Paperback)

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In this sweeping history, Steven Marks tells the fascinating story of how Russian figures, ideas, and movements changed our world in dramatic but often unattributed ways. Russia gave the world new ways of writing novels. It launched cutting-edge trends in ballet, theater, and art that revolutionized contemporary cultural life. The Russian anarchist movement benignly shaped the rise of vegetarianism and environmentalism while also giving birth to the violent methods of modern terrorist organizations. Tolstoy's visions of nonviolent resistance inspired Gandhi and the U.S. Civil Rights movement at the same time that Russian anti-Semitic conspiracy theories intoxicated rightwing extremists the world over. And dictators from Mussolini to Saddam Hussein learned from the experiments of the Soviet regime. This is a richly textured and stunningly original account of how Russia has shaped the modern world. Placing Russia in its global context, the book betters our understanding of the anti-Western strivings that have been such a prominent feature of recent history.

Reviews

"[Marks] examines the way that Russian ideas, social models and political programs have spread across the wider world... The coverage is broad: from Marx to Marks, so to speak. The book is clear, often understated and always unpretentious; it contains several refreshingly sane and lucid accounts of complex and emotive subjects. It also managed not to be bland."--Stephen Lovell, Times Literary Supplement "A valuable, accessible, and comprehensive guide... A rich example of the capacity of intellectual history to carry us across borders and over centuries... It is highly recommended for a broad readership."--Anne Gorsuch, History Today "A scholarly and thought-provoking book."--Choice "A number of books have explored the West's long and controversial influence on Russia. Few, however, have explored the reverse flow of ideas, and none better than this concise, graceful, amazingly wide-ranging book."--Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs "An extraordinarily wide-ranging and exhaustively researched study of Russia's influence on the world from the 1880s to the present... [A] fascinating, complex, and rich text that makes compelling arguments about Russia's influence upon the world. This work should be of interest not only to many Russianists, but also to a more general audience with little or no background in Russia."--Rebecca Epstein Matveyev, Slavic and East European Journal "This is an imaginative, synthetic, and stimulating exploration of one of the major phenomena of our world, the Russian contribution to the revolt against the modern west... [It] is a marvelous introduction to that antimodern revolution for the general reader, the student, and even the specialist."--Robert C. Williams, Slavic Review

Author Bio

Steven G. Marks is Professor of History at Clemson University and the author of "Road to Power: The Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Colonization of Asian Russia, 1850 -1917".