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Comrades: Communism: A World History by: Robert Service List Price: £9.99 City Travel Guides Price: £6.99 You Save: £3.00 (30%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 335.4 EAN: 9780330439688 ISBN: 0330439685 Label: Pan Books Manufacturer: Pan Books Number Of Pages: 624 Publication Date: May 02, 2008 Publisher: Pan Books Studio: Pan Books Sales Rank: 89843 Related Items:
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
 Rating:  - BiasedI was really looking forward to 'Comrades' arriving but after reading the introduction was already beginning to feel a little disappointed. Robert Service is clearly a very intelligent man who has trawled through miles of archives. Unfortunately he cannot hide the fact that he is rabidly anti-Communist. He makes too many childish remarks about the most prominent leaders and even the colour prints in the centre of the book are accompanied by petty jibes. We know that life under Communism was never the utopia it had hoped to be and that in many Communist states life was truly a nightmare of terror and repression. Unfortunately because of Service's style and commentary I get no sense of how much of the suffering came to be. It is too simplistic ... Read More: Rating:  - Rubbish when it's not on RussiaThis is an awful book. It is very poorly written and dull to read. It's obvious that the author (an expert on Russia) knows very little about Eastern Europe, China, Africa, Cuba, or anywhere else with a Communist movement. Many of his generalizations (and the book is little else) are regurgitated from the literature of 30 years ago. There is nothing new in this book. It has no insights - even on the Soviet Union - to make it worth the bother of ploughing through its dreadful prose. Rating:  - The People's Book is deepest redFor those historians who like to think big, and take the brave decision to write a book which tackles a very large concept, a long period of time or controversial idea, it is difficult not to fall in to a trap of excessive simplicity or letting the bigger picture slip away amidst a barrage of details. Few subjects are as complex, debatable or relevant as communism, and this is the story of an ideology that changed the world. It is also a subject on which it is impossible to be neutral. Communism as a monstrous ideology which led to more deaths than Facism, a brutal system implemented by thuggish dictators? Or a utopian idea whose time was not right, or that was implemented in the wrong places? A brave attempt at challenging age ... Read More: |
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