A History of Russia by Nicholas V. Riansanovsky

I thoroughly enjoyed this old college textbook, a 600-page tome, on Russian history, appropriately called “A History of Russia.” It was suggested to be a friend who happens to be a Russian History professor at UCSD, as I prepare for a trip to Russia in July 2013. This book, Riasanovsky’s fourth edition, was published in 1984, so he gets no farther than Yuri Andropov, who died in1984. Riansonovsky was a Russian émigré who became a professor at Berkeley. I think there were eight editions before he died, but I got this 4^th edition on line for $5.00. It was money well spent. He starts the story in the year 1000 BCE and works his way forward, which is precisely what I wanted. I’ll have to find another text to get a more modern history, probably Brezhnev or Andropov to Putin. Clearly, this book is not for everyone. Knowing that I read with a highlighter in hand, even the friends I’ll be traveling with want to do no more than read my highlights – have no interest in actually studying this material. On the other hand, I liked the review of information that I had not looked at in 40 years, such as the conquests of the Huns and Mongols, the exploits of the great personalities of Ivan the Terrible, and then the Romanov’s Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and the series of Tsars who followed. Did you know the origin of the word Tsar comes from Caesar? I learned more about the rise of Lenin and Stalin than I had known before, as well as the transition from Stalin to Khrushchev. It’s a well-organized book and the energy that was building toward the revolution in 1917 was palpable. So, you probably won’t read this, but I’m glad I did.