Author:Orlando Figes
From the award-winning author of The Whisperers, Orlando Figes Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia is a dazzling history of Russia's mighty culture.
Orlando Figes' enthralling, richly evocative history has been heralded as a literary masterpiece on Russia, the lives of those who have shaped its culture, and the enduring spirit of a people.
'Wonderfully rich ... magnificent and compelling ... a delight to read'
Antony Beevor
'A tour de force by the great storyteller of modern Russian historians ... Figes mobilizes a cast of serf harems, dynasties, politburos, libertines, filmmakers, novelists, composers, poets, tsars and tyrants ... superb, flamboyant and masterful'
Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Financial Times
'Awe-inspiring ... Natasha's Dance has all the qualities of an epic tragedy'
Mail on Sunday
'It is so much fun to read that I hesitate to write too much, for fear of spoiling the pleasures and surprises of the book'
Sunday Telegraph
'Magnificent ... Figes is at his exciting best'
Guardian
'Breathtaking ... The title of this masterly history comes from War and Peace, when the aristocratic heroine, Natasha Rostova, finds herself intuitively picking up the rhythm of a peasant dance ... One of those books that, at times, makes you wonder how you have so far managed to do without it'
Independent on Sunday
'Thrilling, dizzying ... I would defy any reader not to be captivated'
Literary Review
Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Peasant Russia, Civil War, A People's Tragedy, Natasha's Dance, The Whisperers and Just Send Me Word. His books have been translated into over twenty languages.
This big, lucidly written and fact-filled book admirably achieves its purpose... Anyone who enjoyed Norman Davies's...The Isles will recognise the same qualities in this book: a gift for broad exposition, a marvellous eye for quirky but revelatory details, and, above all, a willingness to question the categories of traditional history, wherever they may come from.
—— Noel Malcolm , Sunday TelegraphAbsorbing...clear...and persuasive...as even-handed, erudite and enlightening as history can be.
—— HeraldMicrocosm tells the story of the city across the centuries. While not neglecting ethnic hatred and folly, the book is a hymn to diversity and cultural achievement.
—— EconomistThe city is fortunate to have found such chroniclers as Davies and Roger Moorhouse.
—— Sunday TimesCombines a relaxed and unfussy style with a thorough knowledge of the period and a sharp eye for detail. Elizabeth's life makes for a compelling story and Starkey tells it well
—— SpectatorThe best political diarist of our times
—— Malcolm Rutherford, Financial TimesReading A. N. Wilson's The Victorians provides ongoing pleasure in handsomely researched, beautifully written prose about an age which we have come to think disparagingly. We thought wrong
—— Clement Freud , Mail on SundayThe Victorians was one of the books that gave me greatest pleasure during the past year... A brilliant evocation of an age
—— Ian McIntyre , The TimesRarely have author and subject been found in such deep and contented harmony... Wilson's tour de force
—— Robert McCrum , ObserverWilson's panoramic survey is the best attempt so far to describe and explain what was happening in that fascinating time
—— Literary ReviewThe Victorians finds Wilson writing at the height of his powers
—— The IndependentI can't recall a history book furnishing so many laughs en route ... The Victorians is a work of scholarship, a labour of love, a persusasive polemic
—— John Sutherland , Mail on Sunday