Background
Conquest, Robert was born on July 15, 1917 in Malvern, Worcestershire, England. Son of Robert Folger Westcott and Rosamund Alys (Acworth) Conquest.
(The Harvest of Sorrow is the first full history of one of...)
The Harvest of Sorrow is the first full history of one of the most horrendous human tragedies of the 20th century. Between 1929 and 1932 the Soviet Communist Party struck a double blow at the Russian peasantry: dekulakization, the dispossession and deportation of millions of peasant families, and collectivization, the abolition of private ownership of land and the concentration of the remaining peasants in party-controlled "collective" farms. This was followed in 1932-33 by a "terror-famine," inflicted by the State on the collectivized peasants of the Ukraine and certain other areas by setting impossibly high grain quotas, removing every other source of food, and preventing help from outside--even from other areas of the Soviet Union--from reaching the starving populace. The death toll resulting from the actions described in this book was an estimated 14.5 million--more than the total number of deaths for all countries in World War I. Ambitious, meticulously researched, and lucidly written, The Harvest of Sorrow is a deeply moving testament to those who died, and will register in the Western consciousness a sense of the dark side of this century's history.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195051807/?tag=2022091-20
( A landmark defense of civilization that illuminates the...)
A landmark defense of civilization that illuminates the political degradations and intellectual fetishisms of our world. The publication of The Dragons of Expectation in 2005 reaffirmed Robert Conquest's stature as a leading intellectual and one of the world's great humanists. In the tradition of Isaiah Berlin's The Crooked Timber of Humanity and George Orwell's Essays, this book brilliantly traces how seductive ideas have come to corrupt modern minds; to often disastrous effects. In what Publishers Weekly called "a frontal assault on the pieties of the left," Conquest masterfully examines how false nostrums have infected academia, politicians, and the public, showing how their reliance on "isms" and the destructive concepts of "People, Nation, and Masses" have resulted in a ruinous cycle of turbulence and war. Including fresh analyses of Russia's October Revolution, World War II, and the Cold War, The Dragons of Expectation is one of the most important contributions to modern thought in recent years. 3 illustrations
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393327590/?tag=2022091-20
(The definitive work on Stalin's purges, Robert Conquest's...)
The definitive work on Stalin's purges, Robert Conquest's The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. Edmund Wilson hailed it as "the only scrupulous, non-partisan, and adequate book on the subject." George F. Kennan, writing in The New York Times Book Review, noted that "one comes away filled with a sense of the relevance and immediacy of old questions." And Harrison Salisbury called it "brilliant...not only an odyssey of madness, tragedy, and sadism, but a work of scholarship and literary craftsmanship." And in recent years it has received equally high praise in the Soviet Union, where it is now considered the authority on the period, and has been serialized in Neva, one of their leading periodicals. Of course, when Conquest wrote the original volume two decades ago, he relied heavily on unofficial sources. Now, with the advent of glasnost, an avalanche of new material is available, and Conquest has mined this enormous cache to write a substantially new edition of his classic work. It is remarkable how many of Conquest's most disturbing conclusions have born up under the light of fresh evidence. But Conquest has added enormously to the detail, including hitherto secret information on the three great "Moscow Trials," on the fate of the executed generals, on the methods of obtaining confessions, on the purge of writers and other members of the intelligentsia, on life in the labor camps, and many other key matters. Both a leading Sovietologist and a highly respected poet, Conquest here blends profound research with evocative prose, providing not only an authoritative account of Stalin's purges, but also a compelling and eloquent chronicle of one of this century's most tragic events. A timely revision of a book long out of print, this updated version of Conquest's classic work will interest both readers of the earlier volume and an entirely new generation of readers for whom it has not been readily available.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195071328/?tag=2022091-20
(The definitive work on Stalin's purges, Robert Conquest's...)
The definitive work on Stalin's purges, Robert Conquest's The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. Harrison Salisbury called it "brilliant...not only an odyssey of madness, tragedy, and sadism, but a work of scholarship and literary craftsmanship." And in recent years it has received equally high praise in the former Soviet Union, where it is now considered the definitive account of the period. When Conquest wrote the original volume, he relied heavily on unofficial sources. With the advent of glasnost, an avalanche of new material became available, and Conquest mined this enormous cache to write, in 1990, a substantially new edition of his classic work, adding enormously to the detail. Both a leading historian and a highly respected poet, Conquest blends profound research with evocative prose, providing not only an authoritative account of Stalin's purges, but also a compelling and eloquent chronicle of one of this century's most tragic events. He provides gripping accounts of everything from the three great "Moscow Trials," to methods of obtaining confessions, the purge of writers and other members of the intelligentsia, life in the labor camps, and many other key matters. On the fortieth anniversary of the first edition, in the light of further archival releases, and new material published in Moscow and elsewhere, it remains remarkable how many of Conquest's most disturbing conclusions have continued to bear up. This volume, featuring a new preface by Conquest, rounds out the picture of this huge historical tragedy, further establishing the book as the key study of one of the twentieth centurys most lethal, and longest-misunderstood, offenses against humanity.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195317009/?tag=2022091-20
(Dr. George Robert Ackworth Conquest (born July 15, 1917),...)
Dr. George Robert Ackworth Conquest (born July 15, 1917), British historian, became a well known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication, in 1968, of his account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s, The Great Terror.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0333098854/?tag=2022091-20
(A leading scholar-historian of the U.S.S.R. offers a pene...)
A leading scholar-historian of the U.S.S.R. offers a penetrating look at one of the most enigmatic and terrifying figures of modern times. Distilling a lifetime's study, Conquest provides a powerful, living portrait of Josef Stalin as child and student, revolutionary and Communist theoretician, political animal and paranoid leader. "A brisk, informative synthesis."--The Wall Street Journal.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140169539/?tag=2022091-20
(Basically, the frightfulness of Kolyma was due not to geo...)
Basically, the frightfulness of Kolyma was due not to geographical or climatic reasons, but to conscious decisions taken in Moscow. For a few years before 1937, in fact, it was well administered and the death rate was low. The climate, though exceedingly cold, is a remarkably healthy one for men who are properly fed, clothed and sheltered. In this earlier phase, the main aim of the administration was to produce gold efficiently. In the later period ( as one commandant put it quite openly), though the gold remained important, the central aim was to kill off the prisoners. In the earliest period of the labour camp system, the Solovki camps on the islands of the White Sea were the symbol of the whole system, the worst killers. These were followed, in the mid-thirties, by the camps of the Baltic-White Sea Canal. Kolyma took their place just when the system was reaching its maximum expansion, and remained central to it for the next fifteen years, as (in Solzhenitsyn's words) 'the pole of cold and cruelty' of the labour camp system."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670414999/?tag=2022091-20
(Reflections on a Ravaged Century by Conquest, Robert. Pub...)
Reflections on a Ravaged Century by Conquest, Robert. Published by W. W. Norton,2001, Binding: Paperback Reprint Edition
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(On December 1, 1934, a lone gunman shot and killed Sergei...)
On December 1, 1934, a lone gunman shot and killed Sergei Kirov, Secretary of the Central and Leningrad Party Organization, member of the Moscow Politburo, and once considered Joseph Stalin's possible successor. As one of the most significant crimes of the century, the assassination not only sealed the fates of thousands--and, indirectly, millions--of people spuriously connected to the killer, but it eliminated the second most powerful man in Russian politics and gave Stalin free rein to dominate Soviet policy. Written by the highly acclaimed author of The Harvest of Sorrow, Stalin and the Kirov Murder presents the first book-length examination of the case. Robert Conquest chronicles the details of the Kirov affair and all of its astonishing consequences. He tells us that now, fifty-five years after Kirov's murder, glasnost has prompted a new examination of this singular crime--one that will perhaps reveal the truth about the case for the first time. Based on all the available evidence, including official documents as well as the reports of numerous Russian defectors, Conquest has written a fascinating, at times chilling, account of the murder and its aftermath. He firmly establishes that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination, but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and '38.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195063376/?tag=2022091-20
Conquest, Robert was born on July 15, 1917 in Malvern, Worcestershire, England. Son of Robert Folger Westcott and Rosamund Alys (Acworth) Conquest.
Student, Winchester College, England, 1935. Student, University Grenoble, France, 1936. Student, University Oxford, 1939.
Master of Arts, University Oxford, England, 1972. Doctor of Letters, University Oxford, 1975.
First secretary Her Majesty Foreign Service, Sofia, Bulgaria, United Nations, London, 1946-1956. Research fellow London School of Economics, 1956-1958. Visiting poet University Buffalo, New York, 1959-1960.
Literature editor The Spectator, London, 1962-1963. Senior fellow Russian Institute Columbia University, New York City, 1964-1965. Fellow Woodrow Wilson International Center, Washington, 1976-1977.
Senior research fellow Hoover Institute, Stanford (California) University, 1977-1979, 81—. Distinguished visiting scholar Heritage Foundation, Washington, 1980-1981. Advisory board Freedom House, New York City, since 1980.
Research associate Ukrainian Research Institute Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, since 1983. Adjunct fellow Washington Center Strategic Studies., since 1984.
(On December 1, 1934, a lone gunman shot and killed Sergei...)
(The definitive work on Stalin's purges, Robert Conquest's...)
(The definitive work on Stalin's purges, Robert Conquest's...)
(Basically, the frightfulness of Kolyma was due not to geo...)
( A landmark defense of civilization that illuminates the...)
(The Harvest of Sorrow is the first full history of one of...)
(Repression breeds creativity - something we don't underst...)
(The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties (Pelican))
(Reflections on a Ravaged Century by Conquest, Robert. Pub...)
(A leading scholar-historian of the U.S.S.R. offers a pene...)
(Book by Conquest, Robert)
(Book by Conquest, Robert)
(paperback)
(Dr. George Robert Ackworth Conquest (born July 15, 1917),...)
Captain infantry British Army, 1939-1946, European Theatre of Operations. Fellow British Academy, British Interplanetary Society, American Academy of Arts and Letters-Michael Braude Award Light Verse, Royal Society Literature, American Academy Arts and Sciences, Society Promotion Roman Studies. Member Literary Society.
Clubs: Travellers (London).
Married Joan Watkins, 1942 (dis. 1948); children: John, Richard. Married Tatiana Mihailova, 1948 (dis.
1963); Married Caroleen Macfarlane, 1964 (dis. 1978); Married Elizabeth Neece, December 1, 1979.