Russia; A 1,000 Year Chronicle...by Martin Sixsmith Sixsmith,
long-time BBC Moscow correspondent, shows how Russia's complex
identity has been forged over a millenium. From the adoption of
the Cyrillic alphabet in the 10th century through the Mongol
conquest of their land in 1240 through the tsars and the Tartars
then the revolution of 1917 that ended the monarchy and brought
Lenin and the Bolsheviks and Communism to power. That autocracy
continued through Stalin then stagnated through several
successors until recent history brought Gorbachev and Yeltsin
and a brief experiment toward freedom via glasnost then a
skirmish with capitalism which failed miserably to be replaced
with the beginnings of another wave of autocracy under Putin.
500 pages that will make you thankful for the location of your
birth in the US of A.