Sunday, May 7, 2023

Book: The Soviet Century (Schlögel)



The Soviet Century
- Archaeology of a Lost World -

by
Karl Schlögel

Princeton University Press
2023

2 comments:

Simon St. Laurent said...

Four pounds of delicious reading; Karl Schlögel's massive work is getting glowing reviews.

Why I am fascinated by the history of the former USSR....

The history of the Soviet space program has long been a study of mine, and such study has sharpened my sense of Soviet history. Sputnik, Vostok, Voskhod, Soyuz, Salyut, and Mir, and the many unmanned space probes, were propelled by politics, in addition to science and engineering. The political and technical machinery was guided by the USSR's need to show the world it was not a league of potato farmers, but a 'nation' worthy of grand history-making technical achievement.

The Soviet Century - Archaeology of a Lost World is not about the Soviet space effort, but it is about the many details of life in the former union:

"An impressively evocative look at material life in the USSR, from gulags and the planned economy to Red Moscow perfume and the Soviet toilet ― a “lost civilisation” of utopian fantasy and unbridled terror."
― Financial Times

A book is calling me....

Simon St. Laurent said...

On a similar theme....

In September, Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 (by Katja Hoyer) will be made available here in Canada. I had better get reading!