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A People’s Tragedy

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A People’s Tragedy

By: Orlando Figes
Narrated by: Roger Davis
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About this listen

Opening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, A People’s Tragedy follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then degenerates into violence and dictatorship.

Drawing on vast original research, Figes conveys above all the shocking experience of the revolution for those who lived it, while providing the clearest and most cogent account of how and why it unfolded.

Now including a new introduction that reflects on the revolution’s centennial legacy, A People’s Tragedy is a masterful and definitive record of one of the most important events in modern history.

©2018 Orlando Figes (P)2018 Audible, Ltd Freedom & Security Military Politics & Government Russia War Imperialism Stalin Self-Determination

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All stars
Most relevant  
Essential reading for those who continue to believe that socialism is not fundamentally cruelly evil

Superb telling of Russian tragedy

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Can be difficult at the start. Author has an evident slant against certain countries.

Well researched, some historical bias

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A great book. i got nothing more to say but i need 15 words on here.

5/5

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The overwhelming recognition as you read this book is that history repeats itself continually.

Great narration of an epic subject

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It is a read worth every minute. Rarely there's a history book written with so much insight.

Supreme

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On the whole, a great account of events of the time from many perspectives. Russian history has a habit of repeating itself over and over again, so this book contains a lot of common themes with later events, up to the present day. Some of the beliefs, habits and attitudes described will be (surprisingly?) familiar from today's context; it's worth reading this book just for the sake of drawing these parallels.

Don't be intimidated by the length of the audiobook -- time does fly by (although I found that listening at 1.1x most optimal). The one big issue with the audiobook is the narrator's terrible pronunciation of Russian words, names and place-names -- if you are a native speaker you won't have a good time with those, but should, on occasion, be able to decipher what he meant. Normally, bad pronunciation of Russian terms is OK, but this is a book about Russia guys, so it'd have been nice to have someone tell him how to pronounce these correctly. Other than this, the narrator is great and is a pleasure to listen to.

A good guide to the repeating history of Russia

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The narrator Roger Davis is one of the best narrators I have heard. The book shows why the revolution occurred, and the tragic story of how it unfolded. A very good argument against absolute rulers. The revolution still affects the world today and not in a good way.

An excellent history of a terrible tragedy.

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A very detailed analysis of 20th Century Russian history. This book will be of interest to the scholar studying the subject, and history buffs wanting more minutiae!

Degree level

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Superb, Harrowing. Figues smashes the romanticism of the Revolution and lays bare its traumatic cost and consequences. A terrible warning from history that our current academics appear to be ignoring if the volume of current self declared Marxists and even communists across the west is anything to go by.

Communism is not the answer to th e inequalities of life, it should be as vilified as those other false flags of zealous utopianism, fascism and national Socialism.

I had hoped that lesson had been learned. Apparently not. Therefore it is the duty of those of us who read and understand history to educate those who are woowed by its terrible mistakes.

Harrowing, more essential that this is read than e

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As my first proper read on Russian Revolution I think the book was very thorough. Perhaps too thorough if your looking for an abridged version of the who’s who and events. I occasionally felt there were too many examples of behaviour and consequences of policies but they didn’t really detract from the flow. I’m well used to very long reads but for some reason I was quite exhausted by the end.

Fascinating and exhausting.

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