A bold new history showing that the fear of Communism was a major factor in the outbreak of World War IIThe Spectre of War looks at a subject we thought we knew—the roots of the Second World War—and upends our assumptions with a masterful new interpretation. Looking beyond traditional explanations based on diplomatic failures or military might, Jonathan Haslam explores the neglected thread connecting them all: the fear of Communism prevalent across contine...

A leading expert on US-Russian relations reveals how the United States and its European allies set the course for the war in Ukraine—and offers a sobering indictment of American foreign policy since the fall of the Soviet Union.Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 should not have taken the world by surprise. The attack escalated a war that began in 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea, but its origins are visible as far back as the afterma...

A revelatory and pathbreaking account of the highly secretive world of the Soviet intelligence servicesA uniquely comprehensive and rich account of the Soviet intelligence services, Jonathan Haslam's Near and Distant Neighbors charts the labyrinthine story of Soviet intelligence from the October Revolution to the end of the Cold War.Previous histories have focused on the KGB, leaving military intelligence and the special service—which specialized in ...

The history of secret intelligence, like secret intelligence itself, is fraught with difficulties surrounding both the reliability and completeness of the sources, and the motivations behind their release—which can be the product of ongoing propaganda efforts as well as competition among agencies. Indeed, these difficulties lead to the Scylla and Charybdis of overestimating the importance of secret intelligence for foreign policy and statecraft and also underestimating its importance in th...

A leading expert on US-Russian relations reveals how the United States and its European allies set the course for the war in Ukraine—and offers a sobering indictment of American foreign policy since the fall of the Soviet Union.Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 should not have taken the world by surprise. The attack escalated a war that began in 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea, but its origins are visible as far back as the afterma...

The Spectre of War looks at a subject we thought we knew—the roots of the Second World War—and upends our assumptions with a masterful new interpretation. Looking beyond traditional explanations based on diplomatic failures or military might, Jonathan Haslam explores the neglected thread connecting them all: the fear of Communism prevalent across continents during the interwar period. Marshalling an array of archival sources, including records from the Communist International, Has...

Previous histories have focused on the KGB, leaving military intelligence and the special service—which specialized in codes and ciphers—lurking in the shadows. Drawing on previously neglected Russian sources, Haslam reveals how both were in fact crucial to the survival of the Soviet state. This was especially true after Stalin's death in 1953, as the Cold War heated up and dedicated Communist agents the regime had relied upon—Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs, Donald Maclean—were betrayed. In t...

Is the universe infinite, or is it just really big? Does nature abhor infinity? In startling and beautiful prose, Janna Levin's diary of unsent letters to her mother describes what we know about the shape and extent of the universe, about its beginning and its end. She grants the uninitiated access to the astounding findings of contemporary theoretical physics and makes tangible the contours of space and time—those very real curves along which apples fall and planets orbit.Levin gu...

Co-founder of The Carlyle Group and patriotic philanthropist David M. Rubenstein takes readers on a sweeping journey across the grand arc of the American story through revealing conversations with our greatest historians.In these lively dialogues, the biggest names in American history explore the subjects they’ve come to so intimately know and understand.— David McCullough on John Adams— Jon Meacham on Thomas Jeffers...

A journalist explores how our world's borders came to be and how self-proclaimed countries across the globe could change the map.What is a country? While certain basic criteria—borders, a government, and recognition from other countries—seem obvious, journalist Joshua Keating investigates what happens in areas of the world that exist as exceptions to these rules. Invisible Countries looks at semiautonomous countries such as Abkhazia, Kurdistan, and Somalil...

"The twelve lessons in On Fascism draw from American history and brilliantly complement those of Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny." —Laurence TribeThe United States of Lyncherdom, as Mark Twain labeled America. Lincoln versus Douglas. The Chinese Exclusion Act. The Trail of Tears. The internment of Japanese-Americans. The Palmer Raids. McCarthyism. The Surveillance State. At turning points throughout history, as we aspired toward great things, we also w...

A panoramic history of Puritanism in England, Scotland, and New EnglandThis book is a sweeping transatlantic history of Puritanism from its emergence out of the religious tumult of Elizabethan England to its founding role in the story of America. Shedding critical new light on the diverse forms of Puritan belief and practice in England, Scotland, and New England, David Hall provides a multifaceted account of a cultural movement that judged the Protestant reforms of...