Robert Service's The Penguin History of Modern Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-first Century provides a superb panorama of Russia in the modern age. Russia's recent past has encompassed revolution, civil war, mass terror and two world wars, and the country is still undergoing huge change. In his acclaimed history, now revised and updated with a new introduction and final chapter, Robert Service explores the complex, changing interaction between rulers and ruled from Tsar Nicholas II, through the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917; from Lenin and Stalin through to Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin and beyond. This new edition also discusses Russia's unresolved economic and social difficulties and its determination to regain its leading role on the world stage and explains how, despite the recent years of de-communization, the seven decades of communist rule which penetrated every aspect of life still continue to influence Russia today. 'Always well-informed and balanced in his judgements, clear and concise in his analysis ... Service is extremely good on Soviet politics' Orlando Figes, Sunday Telegraph 'A fine book ... it is a dizzying tale and Service tells it well; he has none of the ideological baggage that has so often bedevilled Western histories of Russia' Brian Moynahan, Sunday Times Robert Service is a Fellow of the British Academy and of St Antony's College, Oxford. He has written several books, including the highly acclaimed Lenin: A Biography, Russia: Experiment with a People, Stalin: A Biography and Comrades: A History of World Communism, as well as many other books on Russia's past and present. His most recent book, Trotsky, has been shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize.

In 1850, China was the 'sick man of Asia'. Now it is set to become the most powerful nation on earth. For 150 years China has endured as victim of oppression, war and famine. This title shows how turbulent that journey has been.

Russia had an extraordinary 20th century, undergoing upheaval and transformation. Service provides a panoramic perspective on a country whose Soviet past encompassed revolution, civil war, mass terror, and two world wars. This new edition takes the story from 2002 through the presidency of Vladimir Putin to the election of Dmitri Medvedev.

"Drawing on documentation only recently made available in the West, this extensively revised and updated edition reflects current views, in Russia and abroad, on the country's past as it approaches the new millennium."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

SR Books' two popular Human Tradition in Latin America titles, covering nineteenth- and twentieth-century history, have been combined into one exciting new volume. The most compelling chapters from these books are now presented in The Human Tradition in Modern Latin America. From the turbulent struggles for independence in the 1800s to the profound and often overwhelming transformations that have accompanied modernization in this century, The Human Tradition in Modern Latin America personalizes the impact that revolution, economic upheaval, urbanization, the destruction of community life, and the disruption of both traditional family and gender roles have had on Latin Americans. Nowhere else can such varied portraits be found as in these diverse and carefully researched essays written by leading scholars.