{"title":"Mark B Smith","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"russia-anxiety-book-mark-b-smith-9780141986500","title":"The Russia Anxiety","description":"'This exciting and provocative book blows apart misconceptions about the Russian past' Lara Douds, Times Higher Education    Russia is an exceptional country, the biggest in the world. It is both   European and exotic, powerful and weak, brilliant and flawed. Why are  we  so afraid of it?   Time and again, we judge Russia by unique   standards. We have usually assumed that it possesses higher levels of   cunning, malevolence and brutality. Yet the country has more often than   not been a crucial ally, not least against Napoleon and in the two  world  wars. We admire its music and its writers. We lavish praise on  the  Russian soul. And still we think of Russia as a unique menace. What  is  it about this extraordinary country that consistently provokes such   excessive responses? And why is this so dangerous?  Ranging  from  the earliest times to the present, Mark B. Smith's remarkable new  book  is a history of this 'Russia Anxiety'. Whether ally or enemy,  superpower  or failing state, Russia grips our imagination and fuels our  fears  unlike any other country. This book shows how history itself  offers a  clearer view and a better future.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49530037371153,"sku":"GOR010967576","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49736324022545,"sku":"NGR9780141986500","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50146628632849,"sku":"CIN0141986506G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50811833516305,"sku":"GOR010606218","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52332957434129,"sku":"NLS9780141986500","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53389664420113,"sku":"GOR012811438","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0141986506.jpg?v=1751446668"},{"product_id":"russia-anxiety-book-mark-b-smith-9780241312766","title":"The Russia Anxiety","description":"Russia is an exceptional country, the biggest in the world. It is both   European and exotic, powerful and weak, brilliant and flawed. Why are  we  so afraid of it?   Time and again, we judge Russia by unique   standards. We have usually assumed that it possesses higher levels of   cunning, malevolence and brutality. Yet the country has more often than   not been a crucial ally, not least against Napoleon and in the two  world  wars. We admire its music and its writers. We lavish praise on  the  Russian soul. And still we think of Russia as a unique menace. What  is  it about this extraordinary country that consistently provokes such   excessive responses? And why is this so dangerous?  Ranging  from  the earliest times to the present, Mark B. Smith's remarkable new  book  is a history of this 'Russia Anxiety'. Whether ally or enemy,  superpower  or failing state, Russia grips our imagination and fuels our  fears  unlike any other country. This book shows how history itself  offers a  clearer view and a better future.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49584961224977,"sku":"GOR009882236","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52422414139665,"sku":"GOR010122379","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53348893098257,"sku":"GOR014866550","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0241312760.jpg?v=1750737588"},{"product_id":"bird-photography-book-mark-b-smith-9781976483356","title":"Bird Photography","description":"Sometimes the best way to tell the truth is by telling a fictional story. Many of us who fought in Viet Nam carry secrets that we were forbidden to tell. It would be treason, we were told. We were required to sign documents stating that we would never divulge what we saw or knew. Forty-one years is a long time to hold a secret that haunts its keeper. Viet Nam Body Count is a slightly fictionalized story that reveals the secrets that sailor, Mushroom Montoya, has kept hidden, in a dark place in his heart.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50470977536273,"sku":"GOR011772135","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51062987718929,"sku":"NIN9781976483356","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51422853464337,"sku":"CIN1976483352G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52414252286225,"sku":"CIN1976483352VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52900768907537,"sku":"GOR014655305","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1976483352.jpg?v=1751445269"},{"product_id":"russia-anxiety-book-mark-b-smith-9780190886059","title":"The Russia Anxiety","description":"A history of Russophobia and its living legacy in world affairsWith proof of election-meddling and the relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin an ongoing conundrum, little wonder many Americans are experiencing what historian Mark B. Smith calls \"the Russia Anxiety.\" This is no new phenomenon. Time and time again, the West has judged Russia on assumptions of its inherent cunning, malevolence, and brutality. Yet for much of its history, Russia functioned no differently - or at least no more dysfunctionally - than other absolutist, war-mongering European states. So what is it about this country that so often provokes such excessive responses? And why is this so dangerous? Russian history can indeed be viewed as a catalog of brutal violence, in which a rotation of secret police - from Ivan the Terrible's Oprichina to Andropov's KGB and Putin's FSB - hold absolute sway. However, as Smith shows, there are nevertheless deeper political and cultural factors that could lead to democratic outcomes. Violence is not an innate element of Russian culture, and Russia is not unknowable. From foreign interference and cyber-attacks to mega-corruption and nuclear weapons, Smith uses Russia's sprawling history to throw light on contemporary concerns. Smith reveals how the past has created today's Russia and how this past offers hints about its future place in the world-one that reaches beyond crisis and confrontation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999652057361,"sku":"NIN9780190886059","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51847653753105,"sku":"CIN0190886056VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52458564321553,"sku":"CIN0190886056A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190886056.jpg?v=1751070164"},{"product_id":"exit-stalin-book-mark-b-smith-9781631498299","title":"Exit Stalin","description":"To those of us in the West, the Soviet Union is synonymous with Stalinism. The common view of the USSR is of a brutal regime that squelched dissent and oversaw a drab, terrified society. Yet as Cambridge historian Mark B. Smith demonstrates in Exit Stalin, after the death of the murderous Joseph Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union was at a crossroads. Would it break from the dictator’s reign or continue his campaign of violence and fear?   The answer was both. The USSR remained harsh and authoritarian, yet it also earnestly sought to fulfill the Russian Revolution’s promise of an egalitarian, progressive future. Smith shows how vacation resorts, Pioneer camps, and new opportunities for private life coexisted with corruption scandals, KGB surveillance, and censorship. Re-creating the everyday rhythms of the country, he takes us into the Soviet Union’s culture, including TV shows and films that were little-known in the West. Ordinary citizens navigated the contradictions of existence under Khrushchev and his successors, building lives within a system they often accepted, believed in, or could not imagine abandoning. The result was the emergence of a distinctive and functioning civilization, a far cry from the vicious dictatorship of the West’s imagination.   A brilliantly original narrative of ordinary life in the late Soviet Union, Exit Stalin also presents a new account of its end, showing how a series of unexpected decisions unraveled the entire project. Ultimately, Smith reveals that the shortages, coercion, and incompetence that underlaid the USSR—and that by the late 1980s would doom it—have to be understood alongside the acceptance it always had from most of its citizens. And this reality, in turn, is crucial for understanding Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union in the twenty-first century.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51846965395729,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51846965559569,"sku":"NGR9781631498299","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781631498299.jpg?v=1771499517"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/de-ch\/collections\/autor-buecher-von-mark-b-smith.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}