Robert Service

In Kremlin Winter, Robert Service, acclaimed biographer of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky and one of the finest historians of modern Russia, brings his deep understanding of that country to bear on the man who leads it. 'One of our most accomplished, erudite and prolific historians of modern Russia.' – Rodric Braithwaite, New StatesmanVladimir Putin has dominated Russian politics since Boris Yeltsin relinquished the presidency in his favour in May 2000. He served two terms as president, before himself relinquishing the post to his prime minister, Dimitri Medvedev, only to return to presidential power for a third time in 2012. Putin’s rule, whether as president or prime minister, has been marked by a steady increase in domestic repression and international assertiveness. Despite this, there have been signs of liberal growth and Putin – and Russia – now faces a far from certain future.Robert Service reveals a premier who cannot take his supremacy for granted, yet is determined to impose his will not only on his closest associates but on society at large. Kremlin Winter is a riveting insight into power politics as Russia faces a blizzard of difficulties both at home and abroad.'A masterful portrait of Putin and Russia' – Jack Coleman, Daily Telegraph

This new and revised edition of poems about the men and women of the North features the most loved ballads by Robert Service. This new and revised edition of poems about the men and women of the North features the most loved ballads by Robert Service, and is illustrated with lively art by Marilen Van Nimwegen. While living in Whitehorse, Robert Service wrote The Cremation of Sam McGee, and other well-known poems. He wrote and published into his mid-eighties. He was quoted as saying, I just go for a walk and come back with a poem in my pocket.

Drawing on a wealth of unexplored material - available for the first time since the collapse of the former Soviet Union - Robert Service's biography of Stalin is the most authoritative yet published. It concentrates not simply on Stalin as dedicated bureaucrat or serial political killer, but on a fuller assessment of his formative interactions in Georgia, his youthful revolutionary activism, his relationship with Lenin, with his family, and with his party members. 'This is effectively the first full biography since perestroika to encompass the economic, political, diplomatic, military, administrative and, above all, ideological dimensions, as well as the personal aspects of Stalin's colossal life . . . Gritty and unshowy, but enlightened by Service's compelling characterisation, magisterial analysis and dry wit, this outstanding biography of lightly worn authority, wide research and superb intuition will be read for decades' Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of STALIN: The Court of the Red Tsar Sunday Times

Overthrowing the conventional image of Stalin as an uneducated political administrator inexplicably transformed into a pathological killer, Robert Service reveals a more complex and fascinating story behind this notorious twentieth-century figure. Drawing on unexplored archives and personal testimonies gathered from across Russia and Georgia, this is the first full-scale biography of the Soviet dictator in twenty years. Service describes in unprecedented detail the first half of Stalin's life--his childhood in Georgia as the son of a violent, drunkard father and a devoted mother; his education and religious training; and his political activity as a young revolutionary. No mere messenger for Lenin, Stalin was a prominent activist long before the Russian Revolution. Equally compelling is the depiction of Stalin as Soviet leader. Service recasts the image of Stalin as unimpeded despot; his control was not limitless. And his conviction that enemies surrounded him was not entirely unfounded. Stalin was not just a vengeful dictator but also a man fascinated by ideas and a voracious reader of Marxist doctrine and Russian and Georgian literature as well as an internationalist committed to seeing Russia assume a powerful role on the world stage. In examining the multidimensional legacy of Stalin, Service helps explain why later would-be reformers--such as Khrushchev and Gorbachev--found the Stalinist legacy surprisingly hard to dislodge. Rather than diminishing the horrors of Stalinism, this is an account all the more disturbing for presenting a believable human portrait. Service's lifetime engagement with Soviet Russia has resulted in the most comprehensive and compelling portrayal of Stalin to date.

Robert Service, famous for his ballads of life in the Gold Rush years of the Yukon, among them The Shooting of Dangerous Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", painted pictures of artists, grisettes and models from the merry, tragic life of bohemian Paris of the early 1900s, inspired by the shadows of World War I as it fell across the city. Throughout these poems are expressions of the poet's own homespun philosophy. His verses offered gaiety, humour, mostalgia and pathos while his comments on women, life and death, ambition, success and failure, were all aimed to evoke quick response in the readers heart."

In this second volume of his Lenin trilogy, Robert Service builds on the approach established in the first. He emphasises the extraordinary circumstances in Russia and the world enabling Lenin to come to power in 1917. He also details ways whereby Lenin led a turbulent Bolshevik party and adjusted its policies so as to gain authority in the soviets. Lenin the crafty and pragmatic politican as well as the utopian and merciless class warrior are portrayed.

'A terrific book about a terrifying subject by the best historian of Russia working today' – Michael Burleigh, author of The Third ReichIn Blood on the Snow, Robert Service returns to the subject that has formed the backbone of his long and distinguished career: the Russian Revolution.For Service, the great unanswered question is how to reconcile the two vital narratives that underpin the extraordinary but troubled events of 1917. One puts the blame squarely on Tsar Nicholas II and on Alexander Kerensky’s provisional government that deposed him. The other is the view from the bottom, that of the workers and peasants who wanted democratic socialism, not the Bolshevik dictatorship imposed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his successors.Service's vivid and revisionist account spans the period from the outbreak of the First World War to Lenin’s death in 1924. In it, he reveals that key seeds of the revolution were sown by the Tsar's decision to join the war against Germany in 1914. He shows with brutal clarity how those events played out, eventually leading to the establishment of the totalitarian Soviet regime, which would endure for the next seven decades.Nicholas II, Kerensky and Lenin are to the fore, but Service enriches his narrative by drawing on little-known diaries of those such as the Vologda peasant Alexander Zamaraev, the NCO Alexei Shtukaturov and the Moscow accounts clerk Nikita Okunev. Through the testimony of these ‘ordinary’ people, Service traces the tortuous path that Russia took through war, revolution and civil war.'This authoritative, detailed account shows how Lenin won control of Russia and caused untold misery . . . ' – The Times

'A terrific book about a terrifying subject by the best historian of Russia working today' – Michael Burleigh, author of The Third ReichIn Blood on the Snow, Robert Service returns to the subject that has formed the backbone of his long and distinguished career: the Russian Revolution.For Service, the great unanswered question is how to reconcile the two vital narratives that underpin the extraordinary but troubled events of 1917. One puts the blame squarely on Tsar Nicholas II and on Alexander Kerensky’s provisional government that deposed him. The other is the view from the bottom, that of the workers and peasants who wanted democratic socialism, not the Bolshevik dictatorship imposed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his successors.Service's vivid and revisionist account spans the period from the outbreak of the First World War to Lenin’s death in 1924. In it, he reveals that key seeds of the revolution were sown by the Tsar's decision to join the war against Germany in 1914. He shows with brutal clarity how those events played out, eventually leading to the establishment of the totalitarian Soviet regime, which would endure for the next seven decades.Nicholas II, Kerensky and Lenin are to the fore, but Service enriches his narrative by drawing on little-known diaries of those such as the Vologda peasant Alexander Zamaraev, the NCO Alexei Shtukaturov and the Moscow accounts clerk Nikita Okunev. Through the testimony of these ‘ordinary’ people, Service traces the tortuous path that Russia took through war, revolution and civil war.'This authoritative, detailed account shows how Lenin won control of Russia and caused untold misery . . .' – The Times

Robert Service's The Penguin History of Modern Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-first Century provides a superb panorama of Russia in the modern age. Russia's recent past has encompassed revolution, civil war, mass terror and two world wars, and the country is still undergoing huge change. In his acclaimed history, now revised and updated with a new introduction and final chapter, Robert Service explores the complex, changing interaction between rulers and ruled from Tsar Nicholas II, through the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917; from Lenin and Stalin through to Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin and beyond. This new edition also discusses Russia's unresolved economic and social difficulties and its determination to regain its leading role on the world stage and explains how, despite the recent years of de-communization, the seven decades of communist rule which penetrated every aspect of life still continue to influence Russia today. 'Always well-informed and balanced in his judgements, clear and concise in his analysis ... Service is extremely good on Soviet politics' Orlando Figes, Sunday Telegraph 'A fine book ... it is a dizzying tale and Service tells it well; he has none of the ideological baggage that has so often bedevilled Western histories of Russia' Brian Moynahan, Sunday Times Robert Service is a Fellow of the British Academy and of St Antony's College, Oxford. He has written several books, including the highly acclaimed Lenin: A Biography, Russia: Experiment with a People, Stalin: A Biography and Comrades: A History of World Communism, as well as many other books on Russia's past and present. His most recent book, Trotsky, has been shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize.

Robert Service dreamed of a life of adventure and freedom to live and write as he wanted, surrounded by nature and the beauty of the world. Born in Lancashire, England, he developed an urge early on to travel abroad, and set his sights on the rough and tumble "wild west" of Canada. Part journalist and part storyteller, he ventured up and down the west coast of the United States and wrote romantic stories of cowboys, gold prospectors, and characters of the lush, wild backwoods. This collection of verse contains Service's famous poetry collections "Songs of a Sourdough", published in 1907 to wide success, "Ballads of a Cheechako", "Rhymes of a Rolling Stone", "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man", and "Ballads of a Bohemian". Service favored simple, rhythmic ballads that allowed the reader to get lost in the colorful descriptions and exciting tales of his imagination, which were inspired by his real world experiences. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

The Cold War had seemed like a permanent fixture in global politics, and until its denouement, no Western or Soviet politician foresaw that the stand-off between the two superpowers - after decades of struggle over every aspect of security, politics, economics and ideas - would end in their lifetimes. Even after March 1985 when Mikhail Gorbachëv became the leader of the Soviet Union it was not preordained that global nuclear Armageddon could or would be averted peaceably.But just four years later, the Berlin Wall was dismantled and perestroika spread throughout the former Soviet bloc. It was a sea change in world history, which resulted in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.Drawing on pioneering archival research, Robert Service's gripping new investigation of the final years of the Cold War pinpoints the astonishing relationships among President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachëv, Secretary of State George Shultz and the USSR's last Foreign Affairs Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, who found a way to cooperate during times of extraordinary change around the world. The story is of American pressure and Soviet long-term decline and over-stretch. The End of the Cold War shows how that small, skillful group of statesmen were determined to end the Cold War on their watch. In the process, they irreversibly transformed the global geopolitical landscape.Authoritative, compelling and meticulously researched, this is political history at its best.

‘A timely and important book . . . he brings to it rare clarity and common sense. His book is a fast-paced account of the last sixteen months of the tsar’s life; brief, sharp, but laced with well-judged feeling for the dramas of the time.’ Catherine Merridale, ObserverIn March 1917, Nicholas II, the last Tsar of All the Russias, abdicated and the dynasty that had ruled an empire for three hundred years was forced from power by revolution. In this masterful and forensic study, Robert Service examines the last year Nicholas's reign and the months between that momentous abdication and his death, with his family, in Ekaterinburg in July 1918.Drawing on the Tsar's own diaries and other hitherto unexamined contemporary records, The Last of the Tsars reveals a man who was almost entirely out of his depth, perhaps even willfully so. It is also a compelling account of the social, economic and political foment in Russia in the aftermath of Alexander Kerensky's February Revolution, the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and the beginnings of Lenin's Soviet republic.

Join in with the 'boys whooping it up in the Malamute Saloon', until the fun is over, and the shooting begins. 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew', Robert Service's classic adventure poem of the far north comes to life in this illustrated edition by noted artist Deran Wright.

The story has been told many times, but Service's deep understanding of the period and his forensic examination of previously untapped sources, including the Tsar's diaries and recorded conversations, as well as the testimonies of the official inquiry, shed remarkable new light on his troubled reign, also revealing the kind of Russia that Nicholas wanted to emerge from the Great War The Last of the Tsars is a masterful study of a man who was almost entirely out of his depth, perhaps even willfully so. It is also a compelling account of the social, economic and political ferment in Russia that followed the February Revolution, the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and the beginnings of Lenin's Soviet socialist republic.