Douglas Smith is the author of Former People and Rasputin. His new book, The Russian Job: The Forgotten Story of How the United States Saved Russia from Ruin, will be published this autumn. His works have been translated into a dozen languages. He has taught and lectured widely in the United States, Britain, and Europe and has appeared in documentaries for A&E, National Geographic, and the BBC. He is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including a Fulbright scholarship and a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Study Center. His book Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy was a best seller in the UK. It won the inaugural Pushkin House Russian Book Prize in 2013, was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and was chosen Book of the Year by Andrew Solomon in Salon. His book, Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs, was published in November 2016.
CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLES
The Bloody Spectacle: On Vladimir Alexandrov’s “To Break Russia’s Chains”
Douglas Smith reads “To Break Russia’s Chains” by Vladimir Alexandrov and ponders the legacy of notorious terrorist Boris Savinkov....
The Original Sin: On Barnes Carr’s “The Lenin Plot” and Jonathan Schneer’s “The Lockhart Plot”
Douglas Smith investigates two recent books on foreign intervention in the Russian Civil War....
Dark Days Are Coming: On Peter Pomerantsev’s “This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality”
Douglas Smith is chilled by “This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality” by Peter Pomerantsev....
Attached to the Party of Humanity: On Robert Zaretsky’s “Catherine & Diderot”
Douglas Smith explores “Catherine & Diderot,” a “scintillating, sophisticated, and nuanced” book by Robert Zaretsky....
“The Blood of the Unhappy Tsar”: On Helen Rappaport’s “The Race to Save the Romanovs”
Douglas Smith investigates “The Race to Save the Romanovs” by Helen Rappaport....
“Weapons Not of the Weak, but of the Strong”: On Nikolay Koposov’s “Memory Laws, Memory Wars: The Politics of the Past in Europe and Russia”
Douglas Smith on “Memory Laws, Memory Wars,” by Nikolay Koposov, which “makes clear the dangers in trying to legislate our understanding of the past.”...
Flames and Famine: On Laura Engelstein and Anne Applebaum
“Russia in Flames” by Laura Engelstein, “Red Famine” by Anne Applebaum, and the legacies of the first communist state....
