Podcast appearances and mentions of michael david fox

Michael David Fox's Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule (Harvard UP, 2025) provides a local, close-up look at the everyday workings of Nazi and Soviet power, in a particular region. It discusses such themes as the Soviet Terror of the late 1930's and the trauma of the collectivization of agriculture, earlier in the decade, as well as the further traumas of Nazi occupation. Especially interesting is its focus on life-trajectories of specific individuals who had daily to navigate the intricate workings of power, in brutalized, violent circumstances. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Michael David Fox's Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule (Harvard UP, 2025) provides a local, close-up look at the everyday workings of Nazi and Soviet power, in a particular region. It discusses such themes as the Soviet Terror of the late 1930's and the trauma of the collectivization of agriculture, earlier in the decade, as well as the further traumas of Nazi occupation. Especially interesting is its focus on life-trajectories of specific individuals who had daily to navigate the intricate workings of power, in brutalized, violent circumstances. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Michael David Fox's Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule (Harvard UP, 2025) provides a local, close-up look at the everyday workings of Nazi and Soviet power, in a particular region. It discusses such themes as the Soviet Terror of the late 1930's and the trauma of the collectivization of agriculture, earlier in the decade, as well as the further traumas of Nazi occupation. Especially interesting is its focus on life-trajectories of specific individuals who had daily to navigate the intricate workings of power, in brutalized, violent circumstances. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Michael David Fox's Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule (Harvard UP, 2025) provides a local, close-up look at the everyday workings of Nazi and Soviet power, in a particular region. It discusses such themes as the Soviet Terror of the late 1930's and the trauma of the collectivization of agriculture, earlier in the decade, as well as the further traumas of Nazi occupation. Especially interesting is its focus on life-trajectories of specific individuals who had daily to navigate the intricate workings of power, in brutalized, violent circumstances. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

Michael David Fox's Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule (Harvard UP, 2025) provides a local, close-up look at the everyday workings of Nazi and Soviet power, in a particular region. It discusses such themes as the Soviet Terror of the late 1930's and the trauma of the collectivization of agriculture, earlier in the decade, as well as the further traumas of Nazi occupation. Especially interesting is its focus on life-trajectories of specific individuals who had daily to navigate the intricate workings of power, in brutalized, violent circumstances. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Michael David Fox's Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule (Harvard UP, 2025) provides a local, close-up look at the everyday workings of Nazi and Soviet power, in a particular region. It discusses such themes as the Soviet Terror of the late 1930's and the trauma of the collectivization of agriculture, earlier in the decade, as well as the further traumas of Nazi occupation. Especially interesting is its focus on life-trajectories of specific individuals who had daily to navigate the intricate workings of power, in brutalized, violent circumstances. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023) compiles an array of recent scholarship that draws on newly available archival evidence. This interview with the book's editor, Dr. Michael David-Fox, summarizes what these new findings add up to, and highlights specific arguments made by the collection's authors. While Russian archives are presently difficult to access, Ukrainian archives have proved to contain a trove of information about the Soviet-era secret police. The authors in this collection have broken much new interpretive ground, and the essays are universally engaging and provocative. About the book: Even more than thirty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the role of the secret police in shaping culture and society in communist USSR has been difficult to study, and defies our complete understanding. In the last decade, the opening of non-Russian KGB archives, notably in Ukraine after 2015, has allowed scholars to explore state security organizations in ways not previously possible. Moving beyond well-known cases of high-profile espionage and repression, this study is the first to showcase research from a wide range of secret police archives in former Soviet republics and the countries of the former Soviet bloc—some of which are rapidly closing or becoming inaccessible once again. Rather than focusing on Soviet leadership, The Secret Police and the Soviet System integrates the secret police into studies of information, technology, economics, art, and ideology. The result is a state-of-the-art portrait of one of the world's most notorious institutions, the legacies of which are directly relevant for understanding Vladimir Putin's Russia today. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023) compiles an array of recent scholarship that draws on newly available archival evidence. This interview with the book's editor, Dr. Michael David-Fox, summarizes what these new findings add up to, and highlights specific arguments made by the collection's authors. While Russian archives are presently difficult to access, Ukrainian archives have proved to contain a trove of information about the Soviet-era secret police. The authors in this collection have broken much new interpretive ground, and the essays are universally engaging and provocative. About the book: Even more than thirty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the role of the secret police in shaping culture and society in communist USSR has been difficult to study, and defies our complete understanding. In the last decade, the opening of non-Russian KGB archives, notably in Ukraine after 2015, has allowed scholars to explore state security organizations in ways not previously possible. Moving beyond well-known cases of high-profile espionage and repression, this study is the first to showcase research from a wide range of secret police archives in former Soviet republics and the countries of the former Soviet bloc—some of which are rapidly closing or becoming inaccessible once again. Rather than focusing on Soviet leadership, The Secret Police and the Soviet System integrates the secret police into studies of information, technology, economics, art, and ideology. The result is a state-of-the-art portrait of one of the world's most notorious institutions, the legacies of which are directly relevant for understanding Vladimir Putin's Russia today. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023) compiles an array of recent scholarship that draws on newly available archival evidence. This interview with the book's editor, Dr. Michael David-Fox, summarizes what these new findings add up to, and highlights specific arguments made by the collection's authors. While Russian archives are presently difficult to access, Ukrainian archives have proved to contain a trove of information about the Soviet-era secret police. The authors in this collection have broken much new interpretive ground, and the essays are universally engaging and provocative. About the book: Even more than thirty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the role of the secret police in shaping culture and society in communist USSR has been difficult to study, and defies our complete understanding. In the last decade, the opening of non-Russian KGB archives, notably in Ukraine after 2015, has allowed scholars to explore state security organizations in ways not previously possible. Moving beyond well-known cases of high-profile espionage and repression, this study is the first to showcase research from a wide range of secret police archives in former Soviet republics and the countries of the former Soviet bloc—some of which are rapidly closing or becoming inaccessible once again. Rather than focusing on Soviet leadership, The Secret Police and the Soviet System integrates the secret police into studies of information, technology, economics, art, and ideology. The result is a state-of-the-art portrait of one of the world's most notorious institutions, the legacies of which are directly relevant for understanding Vladimir Putin's Russia today. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/central-asian-studies

The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023) compiles an array of recent scholarship that draws on newly available archival evidence. This interview with the book's editor, Dr. Michael David-Fox, summarizes what these new findings add up to, and highlights specific arguments made by the collection's authors. While Russian archives are presently difficult to access, Ukrainian archives have proved to contain a trove of information about the Soviet-era secret police. The authors in this collection have broken much new interpretive ground, and the essays are universally engaging and provocative. About the book: Even more than thirty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the role of the secret police in shaping culture and society in communist USSR has been difficult to study, and defies our complete understanding. In the last decade, the opening of non-Russian KGB archives, notably in Ukraine after 2015, has allowed scholars to explore state security organizations in ways not previously possible. Moving beyond well-known cases of high-profile espionage and repression, this study is the first to showcase research from a wide range of secret police archives in former Soviet republics and the countries of the former Soviet bloc—some of which are rapidly closing or becoming inaccessible once again. Rather than focusing on Soviet leadership, The Secret Police and the Soviet System integrates the secret police into studies of information, technology, economics, art, and ideology. The result is a state-of-the-art portrait of one of the world's most notorious institutions, the legacies of which are directly relevant for understanding Vladimir Putin's Russia today. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023) compiles an array of recent scholarship that draws on newly available archival evidence. This interview with the book's editor, Dr. Michael David-Fox, summarizes what these new findings add up to, and highlights specific arguments made by the collection's authors. While Russian archives are presently difficult to access, Ukrainian archives have proved to contain a trove of information about the Soviet-era secret police. The authors in this collection have broken much new interpretive ground, and the essays are universally engaging and provocative. About the book: Even more than thirty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the role of the secret police in shaping culture and society in communist USSR has been difficult to study, and defies our complete understanding. In the last decade, the opening of non-Russian KGB archives, notably in Ukraine after 2015, has allowed scholars to explore state security organizations in ways not previously possible. Moving beyond well-known cases of high-profile espionage and repression, this study is the first to showcase research from a wide range of secret police archives in former Soviet republics and the countries of the former Soviet bloc—some of which are rapidly closing or becoming inaccessible once again. Rather than focusing on Soviet leadership, The Secret Police and the Soviet System integrates the secret police into studies of information, technology, economics, art, and ideology. The result is a state-of-the-art portrait of one of the world's most notorious institutions, the legacies of which are directly relevant for understanding Vladimir Putin's Russia today. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023) compiles an array of recent scholarship that draws on newly available archival evidence. This interview with the book's editor, Dr. Michael David-Fox, summarizes what these new findings add up to, and highlights specific arguments made by the collection's authors. While Russian archives are presently difficult to access, Ukrainian archives have proved to contain a trove of information about the Soviet-era secret police. The authors in this collection have broken much new interpretive ground, and the essays are universally engaging and provocative. About the book: Even more than thirty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the role of the secret police in shaping culture and society in communist USSR has been difficult to study, and defies our complete understanding. In the last decade, the opening of non-Russian KGB archives, notably in Ukraine after 2015, has allowed scholars to explore state security organizations in ways not previously possible. Moving beyond well-known cases of high-profile espionage and repression, this study is the first to showcase research from a wide range of secret police archives in former Soviet republics and the countries of the former Soviet bloc—some of which are rapidly closing or becoming inaccessible once again. Rather than focusing on Soviet leadership, The Secret Police and the Soviet System integrates the secret police into studies of information, technology, economics, art, and ideology. The result is a state-of-the-art portrait of one of the world's most notorious institutions, the legacies of which are directly relevant for understanding Vladimir Putin's Russia today. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023) compiles an array of recent scholarship that draws on newly available archival evidence. This interview with the book's editor, Dr. Michael David-Fox, summarizes what these new findings add up to, and highlights specific arguments made by the collection's authors. While Russian archives are presently difficult to access, Ukrainian archives have proved to contain a trove of information about the Soviet-era secret police. The authors in this collection have broken much new interpretive ground, and the essays are universally engaging and provocative. About the book: Even more than thirty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the role of the secret police in shaping culture and society in communist USSR has been difficult to study, and defies our complete understanding. In the last decade, the opening of non-Russian KGB archives, notably in Ukraine after 2015, has allowed scholars to explore state security organizations in ways not previously possible. Moving beyond well-known cases of high-profile espionage and repression, this study is the first to showcase research from a wide range of secret police archives in former Soviet republics and the countries of the former Soviet bloc—some of which are rapidly closing or becoming inaccessible once again. Rather than focusing on Soviet leadership, The Secret Police and the Soviet System integrates the secret police into studies of information, technology, economics, art, and ideology. The result is a state-of-the-art portrait of one of the world's most notorious institutions, the legacies of which are directly relevant for understanding Vladimir Putin's Russia today. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023) compiles an array of recent scholarship that draws on newly available archival evidence. This interview with the book's editor, Dr. Michael David-Fox, summarizes what these new findings add up to, and highlights specific arguments made by the collection's authors. While Russian archives are presently difficult to access, Ukrainian archives have proved to contain a trove of information about the Soviet-era secret police. The authors in this collection have broken much new interpretive ground, and the essays are universally engaging and provocative. About the book: Even more than thirty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the role of the secret police in shaping culture and society in communist USSR has been difficult to study, and defies our complete understanding. In the last decade, the opening of non-Russian KGB archives, notably in Ukraine after 2015, has allowed scholars to explore state security organizations in ways not previously possible. Moving beyond well-known cases of high-profile espionage and repression, this study is the first to showcase research from a wide range of secret police archives in former Soviet republics and the countries of the former Soviet bloc—some of which are rapidly closing or becoming inaccessible once again. Rather than focusing on Soviet leadership, The Secret Police and the Soviet System integrates the secret police into studies of information, technology, economics, art, and ideology. The result is a state-of-the-art portrait of one of the world's most notorious institutions, the legacies of which are directly relevant for understanding Vladimir Putin's Russia today. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

SEASON 2 EPISODE 18: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT:  Trump needed just four hours and 25 minutes to violate the terms of his bail. Lock him up. Trump was granted pre-trial release on 200-thousand dollars bond in Atlanta at 3:30 PM yesterday and at 7:55 PM he violated the terms of that bail and now let's see what Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee is made of. “The Defendant shall perform no act to intimidate any person known to him or her to be a co-defendant or witness in this case or OTHERWISE OBSTRUCT THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. This shall include, but is not limited to, the following: ” Paragraph E: “The above shall include, but are not limited to, posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media." He didn't even last four-and-a-half hours. Confirming CNN's report that he will be booked in Atlanta on Thursday, Trump called the prosecutor a quote “radical left district attorney...who is overseeing one of the greatest murder and violent crime disasters in American history… she campaigned and is continuing to cmapign and raise money on this witch hunt. This is in strict coordination with…Biden's DOJ. It is all about election interference”unquote, none of which is true and all of which is an attempt to obstruct the administration of justice and was made via “posts on social media or reposts of posts” and which should be greeted Thursday by the booking officers at Rice Street Jail in Atlanta by an order from Judge McAfee to detain him. Period. Trouble afterwards? Lindsey Graham's “riots in the street”? Trump's own threat of “death and destruction”? The countless bleatings of the sheep like Trump whores like Tim Pool about “civil war”? I'll quote another Trump flunky, Jeffrey Clark: “That's why there's an insurrection act.” Trump is now out on bail… in three different states and the District of Columbia. He has CERTAINLY violated the terms of that bail with his spasm of threats against Judge Chutkan and Special Counsel Smith. Now, he has CERTAINLY violated the terms of that bail in Georgia. And soon or late, the remaining sane people in this country are going to have to reestablish the rule of law – or to call it by the name that Trump and his cult actually perceive it: the rule of being-afraid-you'll-get-caught-and-sent-to-prison. We are GOING to HAVE to take the action without fear of taking the consequences, or the very MEANING of law itself in this nation will not just be erased, but will be rendered impossible to restore. Trump's supporters have forgotten that even if - like them - you DON'T have morals you are supposed to have a healthy fear of getting caught and going to prison. It's goddamned time that we remind him. And the opportunity to do so falls to Judge Scott McAfee. You wrote it, Judge. And Trump broke it. He's already in your jail on Thursday, Judge. Keep him there. Enforce the goddamned law. B-Block (21:38) IN SPORTS: No, Dodger Stadium did NOT flood when Tropical Storm Hilary hit L.A. The New York Knicks add to their popularity by suing another team over analytics. And Gannett is trying AI for writing high school sports. If this is the best AI can do mankind has nothing to worry about. (26:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Michael David Fox of Las Cruces NM is charged with relying on a QAnon video to tell him which Congresswoman to threaten to kill; Howie Kurtz appears to be sending out hostage messages via twitter; a Democrat votes with Republicans to approve a recall move against a Democrat. The other Democrat doesn't even show up for the vote. C-Block (32:46) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: MSNBC fired Rachel Maddow! Not recently, mind you. But they can only bury the ugly past so long. They offed her in 2005 because they thought it would make the Tucker Carlson show - on which she was a regular - better.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the fourth podcast of Arguing History, Mark D. Steinberg and Michael David-Fox discuss the factors driving the Russian Revolutions of 1917. They consider how what is often remembered as two distinct events was in fact a multitude of different revolutions, reflecting the various goals of a diverse range of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the fourth podcast of Arguing History, Mark D. Steinberg and Michael David-Fox discuss the factors driving the Russian Revolutions of 1917. They consider how what is often remembered as two distinct events was in fact a multitude of different revolutions, reflecting the various goals of a diverse range of participants. In the process, they debate the underlying factors behind them, the reasons why events took the courses they did, and how it was that such a profusion of revolutions came to be defined in the way that we remember them today. Mark D. Steinberg is Professor of History at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champlain and the author of several books about Russian history, including The Russian Revolution, 1905-1921, Petersburg Fin de Siecle, and Voices of the Revolution 1917. Michael David-Fox is Professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Department of History at Georgetown University and the author of Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning Among the Bolsheviks, 1918-1929 and Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the fourth podcast of Arguing History, Mark D. Steinberg and Michael David-Fox discuss the factors driving the Russian Revolutions of 1917. They consider how what is often remembered as two distinct events was in fact a multitude of different revolutions, reflecting the various goals of a diverse range of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the fourth podcast of Arguing History, Mark D. Steinberg and Michael David-Fox discuss the factors driving the Russian Revolutions of 1917. They consider how what is often remembered as two distinct events was in fact a multitude of different revolutions, reflecting the various goals of a diverse range of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the fourth podcast of Arguing History, Mark D. Steinberg and Michael David-Fox discuss the factors driving the Russian Revolutions of 1917. They consider how what is often remembered as two distinct events was in fact a multitude of different revolutions, reflecting the various goals of a diverse range of participants. In the process, they debate the underlying factors behind them, the reasons why events took the courses they did, and how it was that such a profusion of revolutions came to be defined in the way that we remember them today. Mark D. Steinberg is Professor of History at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champlain and the author of several books about Russian history, including The Russian Revolution, 1905-1921, Petersburg Fin de Siecle, and Voices of the Revolution 1917. Michael David-Fox is Professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Department of History at Georgetown University and the author of Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning Among the Bolsheviks, 1918-1929 and Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been a quarter century since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This anniversary marks a good occasion to ask a seemingly simple question: “What was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?” Was it Russia in a new wrapper? Or was it something new and unheralded in world history? Was it “Socialism in One Country?” Or was it a continent-sized vehicle for the spread of international communism? Was it ruled by a peculiar kind of “traditionalism?” Or was it a variation on a kind of typical “modernity?” In this thought-provoking collection of essays, the historian Michael David-Fox addresses these and other crucial questions about the USSR. Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) doesn’t offer simple answers. David-Fox shows again and again that easy dichotomies do little to capture the complexity of the Soviet experience. The USSR, he argues, is just not that easy to “boil down.” It was many things to many people, and continues to be so today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been a quarter century since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This anniversary marks a good occasion to ask a seemingly simple question: “What was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?” Was it Russia in a new wrapper? Or was it something new and unheralded in world history? Was it “Socialism in One Country?” Or was it a continent-sized vehicle for the spread of international communism? Was it ruled by a peculiar kind of “traditionalism?” Or was it a variation on a kind of typical “modernity?” In this thought-provoking collection of essays, the historian Michael David-Fox addresses these and other crucial questions about the USSR. Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) doesn’t offer simple answers. David-Fox shows again and again that easy dichotomies do little to capture the complexity of the Soviet experience. The USSR, he argues, is just not that easy to “boil down.” It was many things to many people, and continues to be so today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been a quarter century since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This anniversary marks a good occasion to ask a seemingly simple question: “What was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?” Was it Russia in a new wrapper? Or was it something new and unheralded in world history? Was it “Socialism in One Country?” Or was it a continent-sized vehicle for the spread of international communism? Was it ruled by a peculiar kind of “traditionalism?” Or was it a variation on a kind of typical “modernity?” In this thought-provoking collection of essays, the historian Michael David-Fox addresses these and other crucial questions about the USSR. Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) doesn’t offer simple answers. David-Fox shows again and again that easy dichotomies do little to capture the complexity of the Soviet experience. The USSR, he argues, is just not that easy to “boil down.” It was many things to many people, and continues to be so today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been a quarter century since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This anniversary marks a good occasion to ask a seemingly simple question: “What was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?” Was it Russia in a new wrapper? Or was it something new and unheralded in world history? Was... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been a quarter century since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This anniversary marks a good occasion to ask a seemingly simple question: “What was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?” Was it Russia in a new wrapper? Or was it something new and unheralded in world history? Was it “Socialism in One Country?” Or was it a continent-sized vehicle for the spread of international communism? Was it ruled by a peculiar kind of “traditionalism?” Or was it a variation on a kind of typical “modernity?” In this thought-provoking collection of essays, the historian Michael David-Fox addresses these and other crucial questions about the USSR. Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) doesn’t offer simple answers. David-Fox shows again and again that easy dichotomies do little to capture the complexity of the Soviet experience. The USSR, he argues, is just not that easy to “boil down.” It was many things to many people, and continues to be so today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of European and American writers, professionals, scientists, artists and intellectuals made a pilgrimage to experience the "Soviet experiment" for themselves. The reception of these intellectuals and fellow travelers and their encounters in order to analyze Soviet attitudes toward the West are the subject of a new book by Michael David-Fox. Speaker Biography: Michael David-Fox is associate professor in the Department of History and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the author of "Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning Among the Bolsheviks, 1918-1929" and a founding editor of the journal Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5444.

People who care about other places (and that's not everyone) have always thought of Russia as a strange place. It doesn't seem to “fit.” A good part of Russia is in Europe, but it's not exactly “European.” Russia has natural resources galore, but it's surprisingly poor. Russians have written a lot of great literature, but for most of Russian history most Russians have been illiterate. Russia has produced some great scientists, but it has also produced some catastrophically bad ones (see “Trofim Lysenko” for more). The most consistent of the Russian inconsistencies has to do, however, with politics. Russia has had a lot of very “enlightened” rulers. Peter, Catherine, Alexander (two of them), and, of course, Lenin and co. These folks took the best theories the West had to offer and put them into practice, or at least tried to. The results, however, were usually disastrous, and never so much so as in the case of the Bolsheviks. In the name of progress, they arguably created the most despotic state in history. Interestingly, many of the people who cared about other places–especially Western Leftists–didn't notice this contradiction between theory and practice. Why? The ordinary answer (and, I should add, a quite convincing one) is that they loved the theory, so they were willing to overlook the practice. But, as Michael David-Fox shows in his highly original Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941 (Oxford University Press, 2011), that was not the only reason the Western Leftists got it wrong. Another reason, and one David-Fox explores in great detail using a remarkable range of archival sources, is that the Soviets built a PR machine to send the right message to the fellow-travelers. They wined them, dined them, and showed them the many (and carefully selected) victories of socialist labor. Which brings us to the most fascinating part of David-Fox's book. The fact of the matter is that the Soviets, no matter how hard they tried, could not hide what came to be known among cynical Russians as “Soviet reality.” The Soviet Union in the 1920 and 1930s was a mess of titanic proportions. The Bolshevik elite knew it (they'd been to the West and often lived there), and so did the fellow-travellers. The Western visitors in David-Fox's book saw “Soviet reality,” and sometimes they even wrote, disappointedly, about it while they were in the USSR. But when they got home, all this “Soviet reality” was forgotten, replaced by an image of a utopia in the making. It makes one wonder if the Soviets needed to worry about their image abroad at all, for that image was firmly evolved in the minds of Western Leftists before they ever arrived in the USSR and carried away when they left it. What happened in between arrival and departure didn't seem to matter much. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People who care about other places (and that’s not everyone) have always thought of Russia as a strange place. It doesn’t seem to “fit.” A good part of Russia is in Europe, but it’s not exactly “European.” Russia has natural resources galore, but it’s surprisingly poor. Russians have written a lot of great literature, but for most of Russian history most Russians have been illiterate. Russia has produced some great scientists, but it has also produced some catastrophically bad ones (see “Trofim Lysenko” for more). The most consistent of the Russian inconsistencies has to do, however, with politics. Russia has had a lot of very “enlightened” rulers. Peter, Catherine, Alexander (two of them), and, of course, Lenin and co. These folks took the best theories the West had to offer and put them into practice, or at least tried to. The results, however, were usually disastrous, and never so much so as in the case of the Bolsheviks. In the name of progress, they arguably created the most despotic state in history. Interestingly, many of the people who cared about other places–especially Western Leftists–didn’t notice this contradiction between theory and practice. Why? The ordinary answer (and, I should add, a quite convincing one) is that they loved the theory, so they were willing to overlook the practice. But, as Michael David-Fox shows in his highly original Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941 (Oxford University Press, 2011), that was not the only reason the Western Leftists got it wrong. Another reason, and one David-Fox explores in great detail using a remarkable range of archival sources, is that the Soviets built a PR machine to send the right message to the fellow-travelers. They wined them, dined them, and showed them the many (and carefully selected) victories of socialist labor. Which brings us to the most fascinating part of David-Fox’s book. The fact of the matter is that the Soviets, no matter how hard they tried, could not hide what came to be known among cynical Russians as “Soviet reality.” The Soviet Union in the 1920 and 1930s was a mess of titanic proportions. The Bolshevik elite knew it (they’d been to the West and often lived there), and so did the fellow-travellers. The Western visitors in David-Fox’s book saw “Soviet reality,” and sometimes they even wrote, disappointedly, about it while they were in the USSR. But when they got home, all this “Soviet reality” was forgotten, replaced by an image of a utopia in the making. It makes one wonder if the Soviets needed to worry about their image abroad at all, for that image was firmly evolved in the minds of Western Leftists before they ever arrived in the USSR and carried away when they left it. What happened in between arrival and departure didn’t seem to matter much. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People who care about other places (and that’s not everyone) have always thought of Russia as a strange place. It doesn’t seem to “fit.” A good part of Russia is in Europe, but it’s not exactly “European.” Russia has natural resources galore, but it’s surprisingly poor. Russians have written a lot of great literature, but for most of Russian history most Russians have been illiterate. Russia has produced some great scientists, but it has also produced some catastrophically bad ones (see “Trofim Lysenko” for more). The most consistent of the Russian inconsistencies has to do, however, with politics. Russia has had a lot of very “enlightened” rulers. Peter, Catherine, Alexander (two of them), and, of course, Lenin and co. These folks took the best theories the West had to offer and put them into practice, or at least tried to. The results, however, were usually disastrous, and never so much so as in the case of the Bolsheviks. In the name of progress, they arguably created the most despotic state in history. Interestingly, many of the people who cared about other places–especially Western Leftists–didn’t notice this contradiction between theory and practice. Why? The ordinary answer (and, I should add, a quite convincing one) is that they loved the theory, so they were willing to overlook the practice. But, as Michael David-Fox shows in his highly original Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941 (Oxford University Press, 2011), that was not the only reason the Western Leftists got it wrong. Another reason, and one David-Fox explores in great detail using a remarkable range of archival sources, is that the Soviets built a PR machine to send the right message to the fellow-travelers. They wined them, dined them, and showed them the many (and carefully selected) victories of socialist labor. Which brings us to the most fascinating part of David-Fox’s book. The fact of the matter is that the Soviets, no matter how hard they tried, could not hide what came to be known among cynical Russians as “Soviet reality.” The Soviet Union in the 1920 and 1930s was a mess of titanic proportions. The Bolshevik elite knew it (they’d been to the West and often lived there), and so did the fellow-travellers. The Western visitors in David-Fox’s book saw “Soviet reality,” and sometimes they even wrote, disappointedly, about it while they were in the USSR. But when they got home, all this “Soviet reality” was forgotten, replaced by an image of a utopia in the making. It makes one wonder if the Soviets needed to worry about their image abroad at all, for that image was firmly evolved in the minds of Western Leftists before they ever arrived in the USSR and carried away when they left it. What happened in between arrival and departure didn’t seem to matter much. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People who care about other places (and that’s not everyone) have always thought of Russia as a strange place. It doesn’t seem to “fit.” A good part of Russia is in Europe, but it’s not exactly “European.” Russia has natural resources galore, but it’s surprisingly poor. Russians have written a... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices