A Military History of Russia — Praeger Security International

A Military History of Russia From Ivan the Terrible to the War in Chechnya

David R. Stone

Book Code: C8502

ISBN: 0-275-98502-4

ISBN-13: 978-0-275-98502-8

DOI:

280 pages

Praeger Publishers

Publication Date: 8/30/2006

List Price: $49.95 (UK Sterling Price: £34.95)

Availability: In Stock

Media Type: Hardcover

Also Available: Ebook

Subjects:

Series Title: Praeger Security International

Reviews:

[A] first-rate, crystal-clear history of five centuries of Russian military operations, from which I have learned a great deal.
—The International History Review
This textbook - the first to appear in forty years - should prove invaluable to students, while specialists, too, will learn a great deal.
—SEER
Stone does an artful job of recounting over 500 years of Russian military campaigns and explaining the complex and reciprocal relationships between the military and society in Russia, as well as Russia's role in Western military history (e.g., the triumph against Napoleon), enacted at the expense of its economic and civic gains. He clarifies Russia's place in the ebb and flow of alliances among emerging nation states in Europe. Every Russian history written in the past 20 years contains much of the same information that Stone presents, but he has a notable ability to clarify military history and thereby Russian history generally....[h]is style will catch the eye of students and casual readers. Recommended for public, high school, and college libraries.
—Library Journal
Stone provides a relatively brief but commendably well-balanced survey of Russian military history from the earliest years of the Kievan Rus state to the present. Whereas most studies of the Russian military concentrate on the events of the past two centuries, this book offers a cogent account of earlier years, including military innovations and wars during the time of Ivan the Terrible and the complicated military history of Peter the Great's reign. Moreover, the author succeeds admirably in his intention not only to include descriptions of the major battles, campaigns, and wars fought by the Russians, but also to discuss the interrelationship of military affairs with the development of the Russian state and society....The book can be read with great profit by anyone interested in Russian military history. Recommended. All levels/libraries.
—Choice

Description: This book brings to light Russia's undeservedly-obscure military past, rectifying the tendency of American and Western military historians to neglect the Russian side of things. Russia, as both a Western and non-Western society, challenges our thinking about Western military superiority. Russia has always struggled with backwardness in comparison with more developed powers, at some times more successfully than others. The imperatives of survival in a competitive international environment have, moreover, produced in Russian society a high degree of militarization. While including operational and tactical detail that appeals to military history enthusiasts, this book simultaneously integrates military history into the broader themes of Russian history and draws comparisons to developments in Europe. The book also challenges old assumptions about the Russian military. Russian military history cannot be summed up simply in a single stock phrase, whether perennial incompetence or success only through stolid, stoic defense; it also shows numerous examples of striking offensive successes.

Stone traces Russia's fascinating military history, and its long struggle to master Western military technology without Western social and political institutions. It covers the military dimensions of the emergence of Muscovy, the disastrous reign of Ivan the Terrible, and the subsequent creation of the new Romanov dynasty. It deals with Russia's emergence as a great power under Peter the Great and culminating in the defeat of Napoleon. After that triumph, the book argues, Russia's social and economic stagnation undermined its enormous military power and brought catastrophic defeat in the Crimean War. The book then covers imperial Russia's long struggle to reform its military machine, with mixed results in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. The Russian Revolution created a new Soviet Russia, but this book shows the continuity across that divide. The Soviet Union's interwar innovations and its harrowing experience in World War II owed much to imperial Russian precedents. A superpower after the war, the Soviet Union's military might was purchased at the expense of continuing economic backwardness. Paradoxically, the very militarization intended to provide security instead destroyed the Soviet Union, leaving a new Russia behind the West economically. Just as there was a great deal of continuity after 1917, this book demonstrates how the new Russian military has inherited many of its current problems from its Soviet predecessor. The price that Russia has paid for its continued existence as a great power, therefore, is the overwhelming militarization of its society and economy, a situation it continues to struggle with.

LCC Class: DK51