Kirjahaku

This book tells for the first time the extraordinary story of Sergei Degaev, a political terrorist in tsarist Russia who disappeared after participating in the assassination of the chief of Russia's security organization in 1883. Those who knew and admired Alexander Pell at the University of South Dakota never guessed that he was actually Degaev, a revolutionary who had reinvented himself as a quiet mathematics professor. "An amazing story, part Dostoevsky, part Conrad. . . . Remarkable."-Michael J. Ybarra, Wall Street Journal "One of the most distinguished historians of Russia . . . [gives] us a real-life thriller that is also a cautionary tale rich with insight into depths of the human psyche."-David Pryce-Jones, Commentary "Absorbing, brilliantly researched. . . . [A] fascinating display of scholarly detective work."-Raymond Carr, Spectator "Pipes is the finest historian of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russia. . . . [His] Degaev Affair takes the reader through the dark and terrifying alleyways of the historical underworld. As a story, it ranks as a true-life version of Conrad's Under Western Eyes."-Nikolai Tolstoy, Literary Review "A brilliant history of treason, deception, terror, and academe in the underworld of Imperial Russia and the respectability of midwestern U.S. universities."-Simon Sebag Montefiore, Financial Times "Fascinating."-Orlando Figes, New York Review of Books

A significant political figure in twentieth-century Russia, Alexander Yakovlev was the intellectual force behind the processes of perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness) that liberated the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from Communist rule between 1989 and 1991. Yet, until now, not a single full-scale biography has been devoted to him.In his study of the unsung hero, Richard Pipes seeks to rectify this lacuna and give Yakovlev his historical due. Yakovlev's life provides a unique instance of a leading figure in the Soviet government who evolved from a dedicated Communist and Stalinist into an equally ardent foe of everything the Leninist-Stalinist regime stood for. He quit government service in 1991 and lived until 2005, becoming toward the end of his life a classical western liberal who shared none of the traditional Russian values. Pipes's illuminating study consists of two parts: a biography of Yakovlev and Pipes's translation of two important articles by Yakovlev. It will appeal to specialists and students of Soviet and post-Soviet studies, government officials involved with foreign policy, and general readers interested in the history of Russia and the Soviet Union.