New Press
Russia/Ussr/Russia: The Drive and Drift of a Superstate
Key Metrics
- Moshe Lewin
- New Press
- Hardcover
- 9781565841239
- 9.6 X 6.51 X 1.26 inches
- 1.48 pounds
- History > Russia & the Former Soviet Union
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Moshe Lewin's major new book is an original and important work that clarifies the sweeping changes that transformed Russia in the twentieth century from a muzhik country to the urban power we read about today. As in his previous works, Moshe Lewin's extraordinary breadth of knowledge and sympathy allows him to deal with the grand narrative of cultural transformation that goes well beyond simple studies of urban growth or industrialization.
The Soviet Union, as Lewin reminds us, was a rural country well into the post-World War II era, becoming predominantly urban only in the mid-1960s. The fascinating story that emerges from this book is one of a country that is becoming increasingly more complex even as it retains a relatively primitive configuration of power.
Professor Lewin goes on to show the historical roots of recent change. In the 1920s it was the government that was impatient to change, while society was transforming itself slowly. Recent years have seen a reversal of this situation, where a largely bureaucratic state simply lost its ability to govern a rapidly changing society. Professor Lewin's analysis lays bare the underlying causes behind the present chaos in the former Soviet Union, where a government that barely understands the new forces that have been so dramatically unleashed finds itself totally unable to control them.
Author Bio
Moshe Lewin was born in Wilno, Poland in 1921. He graduated with his B. A. from the Tel Aviv University, Israel, in 1961 and earned his Ph.D. from Sorbonne, Paris, in 1964.
He was Director of Study Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, from 1965 to 1966 and senior fellow of Columbia University from 1967 to 1968. Appointed research professor of the Birmingham University, England, in 1968, he held that position until 1978 when he came to the United States and was appointed professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania.
One of the most influential scholars of Russian and Soviet history in the world, Lewin authored many books, among them
- Russian Peasant and Soviet Power (1968),
- Lenin’s Last Struggle (1968),
- Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates (1974),
- The Making of the Soviet System (1985), The Gorbachev Phenomenon (1988),
- Stalinism and the Seeds of Soviet Reform : the Debates of the 1960’s (1991),
- Russia–USSR–Russia : the Drive and Drift of a Superstate (1995), and
- Stalinism and Nazism : Dictatorships in Comparison (co-edited with Ian Kershaw, 1997).
- He retired and was elected Professor Emeritus at Penn in 1995.
Source: University Penn Archives and Records Center
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