United Kingdom
"A masterpiece of history and a harrowing lesson for today. . . Antony Beevor’s grimly magnificent new book. . . is a hugely complex story and Beevor tells it supremely well. The book is ground-breaking in its use of original evidence from many archives."
- Noel Malcolm The Daily Telegraph
"What makes the new book so readable is its structure. . . Beevor’s short chapters break up the action to ensure they are digestible while also pointing a clear path through the dark fog of this brutal war. . . This combination of clarity with vividness is Beevor’s defining strength as a historian."
- Misha Glenny The Sunday Times
"My book of the year has to be Antony Beevor’s magisterial Russia: Revolution and civil war, 1917-1921 which brings into harrowing focus four chaotic years in a theatre of conflict stretching from Poland to the Pacific. Often the study of this period centres on politics and ideology, but Beevor depicts the raw reality of its warfare with the skill of a military historian, buttressed by new material from Russian archives. Enfolded into the grander narrative is the experience of its humbler participants and victims, until the confusion and brutality of this time, leaving 10 million dead, attain a vivid and terrible force. It is a great achievement.
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- Colin Thubron The Times Literary Supplement
"Antony Beevor’s extraordinary book strips the romance from a revolution too often idealised. . . It’s unmerciful, agonising yet irresistible."
- G deGroot The Times Book of the Year
"Antony Beevor’s Russia: Revolution and civil war, 1917-1921 is an extraordinary book, hugely impressive for its in-depth research, narrative drive and deft analysis of politics and warfare. As this grimmest of civil wars draws to a close, one ends up richly informed but stunned by the scale of human suffering, and contemplating the possibilities of many might-have-beens."
- Noel Malcolm Times Literary Supplement
"Beevor, best known for his formidable book Stalingrad, commands authority because his research is comprehensive and his conclusions free of political agenda. He is a skilled writer, but his prose is is not what makes his books special. Rather, it is the confidence that his authority conveys – one senses that he knows his subject as well as anyone. He allows his evidence to speak for itself. . . This is an unmerciful book, agonising, yet always irresistible."
- Gerard DeGroot The Times
"A masterpiece of history and a harrowing lesson for today. . . Antony Beevor’s grimly magnificent new book. . . is a hugely complex story and Beevor tells it supremely well. The book is ground-breaking in its use of original evidence from many archives."
- Noel Malcolm The Daily Telegraph *****
"The book is a masterpiece’"
- Sara Wheeler The Spectator
"Antony Beevor’s Russia – Revolution and Civil War makes compelling use of witness testimony including from Russian archives. . . As an account of internecine rivalry the book has panoramic sweep."
- Catriona Kelly The Financial Times
"A mass of chilling contemporary testimony in a new history of the 1917-21 Russian experience, written by British historian Antony Beevor, is winning plaudits around the world."
- Max Hastings Bloomberg.com
"Beevor weaves his way through the enormous complexities of these years with intelligence, wit, and a talent for describing individuals and events. As one might expect he is in his element when describing battles, campaigns, and the down-to-earth realities of war. He conveys well the appalling savagery, casual violence and suffering brought on by the Civil War."
- Dominic Lieven The Times Literary Supplement
"Beevor is a fine historian – diligent, conscientious and knowledgeable, with a long list of excellent books behind him. This volume is well researched and full of telling detail."
- Peter Hitchens The Mail on Sunday
"A wonderfully lucid writer who marshals the extensive material with great verve and understanding. . . Beevor has captured the tragedy in mesmerising detail."
- Andrew Anthony The Observer
"The narrative brio, magpie eye for telling facts and confident handling of a vastly complex cast of characters and stories that made his previous books modern classics are fully in evidence. . . A glorious read – pacy, engaging and filled with moving personal testimony. Just as in Stalingrad, Beevor brings a grand historical epic to urgent, teeming life."
- Owen Matthews The Oldie
"The civil war which engulfed Russia from 1917 to 1921 was one of the most colossally damaging of all conflicts, yet most people know little about it. This grimly magnificent book explains why – it is a mind-bogglingly complex story, but Beevor tells it extremely well, demolishing myths on all sides."
- NM The Telegraph
"A completely riveting account of how the Russian Revolution, which started with such high hopes and idealism, degenerated into a tangle of civil conflicts marked by hideous cruelty on all sides. Antony Beevor brings his great gifts for narrative and his deep interest in the people who both make history and suffer it to illuminate that crucial period whose consequences we are still living with today."
- Margaret MacMillan
Spain
"Ahora leo con una especie de obstinación sombría Rusia: Revolución y guerra civil, 1917-1921, el último libro de Antony Beevor, y me doy cuenta de que sabía en realidad mucho menos de lo que imaginaba, en parte por simple falta de información, pero sobre todo porque la dimensión del horror que se abatió sobre el país en esos años es tan exorbitante que no hay una imaginación que pueda abarcarlo, ni razón que pueda comprenderlo."
- Antonio Muñoz Molina Babelia El País
"Antony Beevor dinamita los mitos más extendidos de la Revolución rusa. . . El maestro de ensayistas lo ha vuelto a hacer."
- Manuel Villatoro ABC
France
"Il y a bien une méthode Beevor. Et c’est peu dire qu’elle fait merveille pour démêler l’echeveau extraordinairement touffu des événements qui marquèrent au fer la Russie de 1917 à 1921. . . C’est peut-être à décrire dans sa violence sans merci et dans sa complexité de lignes de front, militaires et politiques, l’affrontement de toute les forces de la Russie que le livre d’Antony Beevor excelle veritablement."
- Geoffroy Caillet Le Figaro
"Lire Antony Beevor, c’est d’être plongé à la fois dans la boue du Donbas et dans les glaces de Siberie avec les combattants des deux côtés. . . une magistrale sythèse."
- Marc Semo Le Monde
Book Choices for Summer Reading
"The civil war which engulfed Russia from 1917 to 1921 was one of the most colossally damaging of all conflicts, yet most people know little about it. This grimly magnificent book explains why – it is a mind-bogglingly complex story, but Beevor tells it extremely well, demolishing myths on all sides.
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NM in Telegraph
Advanced Comments
"Brilliant and utterly readable"
- Antonia Fraser
"In Stalingrad, Berlin and The Second World War, Antony Beevor transformed military history by evoking the experiences of those who fought and suffered in some the greatest wars of the twentieth century. Now he has given us what may be his most brilliant book to date - a masterpiece of historical imagination, in which the tragedy and horror of this colossal struggle is recaptured, in its impact on everyday life as well as its military dimensions, as never before. This is a great book, whose depiction of savage inhumanity speaks powerfully to our present condition.
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- John Gray
"In this brilliant marshalling of a notoriously complex history, Antony Beevor opens up a magisterial canvas of terror and tragedy."
- Colin Thubron
"A magnificent piece of work – as superbly researched and original as Stalingrad, and compellingly told by a historian at the top of his powers. So much of the tragic story of Russia and the bloodlands of Eastern Europe over the past century make sense after reading Antony Beevor’s epic and often shocking tale of revolution, civil war, oppression, starvation, brutality and shifting borders; if anyone needs to know why history matters, this book has the answers. Stunning
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- James Holland
