This is a History of Eastern Armenia in the present. Easily readible. It details the history of the Armenians and especially focuses on the eastern Armenians in the Russian empire and the Soviet state. A good resource as their are so few books on the Armenians and the tragedy of the Armenian genocide. This is a topic and a people more Americans need to learn about.

Ronald Suny presents the story of how the Georgia Republic became an independent nation. I worked for two years in Georgia and this book helped me understand Georgians, their pride in their culture and long history and their antipathy to Russia.

Suny writes well --the book reads like a novel even though it is carefully researched.

This book was required reading for my History of Russia- The Stalin Years class. As I began to read this book, I began to feel for the people and all the pain and terror that they were experiencing. This book shows the true horror of the time and reminds us that this is a time that we never wish to be part of or experience ever again.

The Soviet Experiment is a snapshot of the social, cultural and polical paradigms that have helped shape this most interesting nation. From the quixotic Bolshevik Revolution to the years of terror under Joseph Stalin to the vain attempts by Borris Yeltsin to create a meaningfull democracy this book gives you all aspects of the Russian delema during the twentieth century. By looking at Russian history and seeing their struggles in industrialization one is better able to understand what an accomplishment the US has achieved during the twentieth century. Great book I would recommend it to any one

Suny writes in an interesting, story-telling style that is easy to read. At the same time, he tackles a complex subject with the authority you would expect from a historian of his calibre. A first rate book!

Suny stresses the development and creation of nationalism within the Soviet Union as the main cause of its collapse. This nationalism, he states, is built on common interests, imagined communities (loaned from Benedict Anderson), rituals, symbols, flags, songs, collective events and the expression of goals.

Suny describes how, especially under Lenin, the development of nationalism was encouraged the Soviet Union. It was this naïve trust in the institutionalization of previously non-existent nationalism within the Soviet Union which lead to inner conflict and desire for the new nations to break free from the Diets, from Russia's rule.

Suny points out that nationalism and nationality are not artificial by blending his moderately constructivst view on nationalism with the suggestion that nationalities might be rooted in "ethnies" (Anthony D. Smith's term). Suny also contributes war with the strengthening of the nation.

In the book he describes clearly the reasons to why regions in the Soviet Union became independent nations and why this process occured on different terms in these different areas. The nations he pedagogically discusses are Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In part the author contributes the short-sightedness of the Russian policy of building nations to the failure of Marxists in the 19th and early 20th century to realize the importance of nationalism.

Ethnicity and class were not obliterated in the Soviet Union and it remained an empire open mostly for Russians and Slavs. In Caucasus the local peoples were constantly kicked around by the Soviet Union and surrounding empires. In Azerbaijanis' capital, Baku, the Azerbaijan's were marginalized by the influx of skilled-workers (mostly from Northern lands).

Eventually due to Stalin's strangle-hold; the following "thaw" under Chruschev, Breshnev, Chernko; due to Gorbachev's bumbling and the intiative of Russian satellite states; the aforementioned nine nations broke free from the retarding Russian rule and became independent nations.

This book provides an interesting perspective on the development of nations and nationlism and their seeming inevitability in a world ruled by such things such as democracy, capitalism, class and race. Suny has written this book in an orderly fashion and covered in detail the specific nations and the struggles within. However, this book is lacking many details in the effort to depict the downfall of the Soviet Union from a somewhat tenuous perspective that favors political ideology and momentum of specific classes as the sole firebrands of revolution.

"The Russian Revolution and Bolshevik Victory:Third Edition," edited and introduced by Ronald Suny and Arthur Adams is a wonderful up-to-date collection of essays from top-notch historians on the current historical debates surrounding the causes and actions of the Russian Revolution.

Books from the PROBLEMS IN EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION SERIES are designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate level European history courses. That being said, this book is not an introductory text. The authors of the articles go directly into their subjects, without providing any significant background information. Therefore, you need to have an historical base level of knowledge to work from. Nonetheless, it is an excellent tool for students, scholars and general readers of modern European history.

The text is best used in class discussions and debate.

This edition has a wonderful chronology of events, which is helpful in preparing for exams.

An excellent representation on Russian historical scholarship