Fresh new miniseries this week as I get started on unpacking the Soviet Union's early years. But as you're probably familiar with by now, a topic that big deserves some setup, and today I begin a way-too-fast overview of the conditions in the Russian Empire leading up to the early 1900s. In short, the place was a mess and it turns out that an out-of-touch autocracy wasn't the best institution to fix it. 
 
Bibliography for this episode: 
 
<ol><li>Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001</li>
<li>Figes, Orlando A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1917 Penguin Books 1998</li>
<li>Smith, SA Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis 1890-1928 Oxford University Press 2018</li>
<li>Fitzpatrick, Sheila The Russian Revolution, 4th Edition Oxford University Press 2017</li>
<li>Kotkin, Stephen Stalin: Paradoxes of Power 1878-1928 Penguin Books 2015</li>
</ol> 
Questions? Comments? Email me at <a href='mailto:peaceintheirtime@gmail.com'>peaceintheirtime@gmail.com</a>

Episode 79 - Autocracy on Edge

A history podcast dedicated to examining the global history of the 1920s and 30s in order to explain the causes of World War II, both large and small. As you might imagine, there’s a lot of ground to cover just to contextualize how the conflict got so out of control. If you love historical deep-dives and play-by-plays of nations in way over their collective heads, this is the show for you. Best niche history podcast out there!

PROTIP: If you’re a new listener and are hopelessly confused by me bouncing from topic to topic, the scope of this show has kinda gotten away from me over the years. I have included an index of miniseries in the description of Episode 1 to provide a guide for what I’ve covered so far.