Crimea
  • Published: 29 July 2011
  • ISBN: 9780141013503
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 608
  • RRP: $45.00
Categories:
Share…

Crimea

Formats & editions
EBook
2 Jun 2011
Paperback
29 Jul 2011
Buy from…
The Nile Mighty Ape BookHub Whitcoulls The Warehouse Paper Plus Fishpond
Find local retailers

A superb, gripping and sweeping piece of writing by a great narrative historian

The terrible conflict that dominated the mid 19th century, the Crimean War killed at least 800,000 men and pitted Russia against a formidable coalition of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire. It was a war for territory, provoked by fear that if the Ottoman Empire were to collapse then Russia could control a huge swathe of land from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf. But it was also a war of religion, driven by a fervent, populist and ever more ferocious belief by the Tsar and his ministers that it was Russia's task to rule all Orthodox Christians and control the Holy Land.

Orlando Figes' major new book reimagines this extraordinary war, in which the stakes could not have been higher and which was fought with a terrible mixture of ferocity and incompetence. It was both a recognisably modern conflict - the first to be extensively photographed, the first to employ the telegraph, the first 'newspaper war' - and a traditional one, with illiterate soldiers, amateur officers and huge casualties caused by disease. Drawing on a huge range of fascinating sources, Figes also gives the lived experience of the war, from that of the ordinary British soldier in his snow-filled trench, to the haunted, gloomy, narrow figure of Tsar Nicholas himself as he vows to take on the whole world in his hunt for religious salvation.
  • Published: 29 July 2011
  • ISBN: 9780141013503
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 608
  • RRP: $45.00
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Orlando Figes

Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. Born in London in 1959, he was previously a Lecturer in History and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. A People’s Tragedy received the Wolfson Prize, the NCR Book Award, the W.H. Smith Literary Award, the Longman/History Today Book Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He is the author of many other books on Russian history including Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, The Whisperers: Private life in Stalin’s Russia, Crimea: the Last Crusade and Just Send Me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag.

Also by Orlando Figes

Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991
Just Send Me Word
Natasha's Dance
The Europeans
The Whisperers
A People's Tragedy
See all

Praise for Crimea

This is the only book on the Crimean War anyone could need. It is lucid, well-written, alive and sensitive. Above all, it tells us why this neglected conflict and its forgotten victims deserve our remembrance

Oliver Bullough, The Independent

This is a heart-rending book ... its importance cannot be overestimated ... This book should be made compulsory reading in Russia today

Antony Beevor, author of 'Stalingrad'

A wonderful subject, on every level, and with Orlando Figes it has found the historian worthy of its width and depth

Norman Stone, Standpoint

Figes is a first class historian... [he] proves an excellent guide to the vagaries of the battlefield, the suffering of the ordinary soldiers and the way in which the war became a crucial part of late-Victorian patriotic mythology, contributing to a new ethos of muscular Christianity

Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph

Orlando Figes ... is back doing what he does best - telling us things about Russia and the world that we did not know, and proving that they are important to our understanding of the world today ... With his deep understanding of Russia and its uncomfortable opposition in the world, Figes elegantly underlines how the cold war of the Soviet era froze over fundamental fault lines that had opened up in the 19th century

Angus MacQueen, The Observer

It is a fine stirring account, expertly balancing analysis with a patchwork of quotation from a wide variety of spectators and participants, together with an impressive narrative across the vast panoramic sweep of the war ... However, the book's true originality lies in its unravelling of the Crimean War's religious origins

Mark Bostridge, Financial Times

Keenly judged, vivid history of a bloody and pointless conflict

Sunday Times Culture

An exhaustively researched, beautifully written book

Saul David, BBC History

One of our most engaging narrative historians, Orlando Figes has produced with his latest book a rollickingly good account of a war that shocked mid-Victorian England ... intelligent and reliable history ... Figes is a stylish and compelling narrator

Lesley Chamberlain, Literary Review

An impressive piece of scholarship ... a concise portrait of the political situation of the time

Telegraph Books of the Year 2010

A stellar historian. As ever, it mixes strong narrative pace, a grand canvas and compelling ideas about current geopolitical tensions

Tristram Hunt, Observer Best Books of the Year: 2010

A sparkling and in passages brilliant account ... it stands amply and slendidly on its own two feet

David Hearst, Guardian

A first-class historian, as his splendid new book, an epic account of the Crimean War of 1853-56, amply demonstrates

Daily Telegraph

A model of wide-lens military history

Dan Jones, The Times (Christmas books 2010)

Wonderful ... an amazing panoramic view ... I've rarely read anything like it

Claire Tomalin

A masterful account of lost and stolen lives

Sunday Times

Awesome ... one of the most unforgettable books I have ever read. I defy anyone to read it without weeping at its human suffering, cruelty and courage ... in this book these righteous heroes have their rightful memorial

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Mail on Sunday