Glorious Misadventures: Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of a Russian America
Autor Owen Matthewsen Limba Engleză Paperback – 30 iul 2014
Preț: 50.94 lei
Preț vechi: 64.96 lei
-22% Nou
Puncte Express: 76
Preț estimativ în valută:
9.75€ • 10.03$ • 8.09£
9.75€ • 10.03$ • 8.09£
Cartea se retipărește
Doresc să fiu notificat când acest titlu va fi disponibil:
Se trimite...
Preluare comenzi: 021 569.72.76
Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781408833995
ISBN-10: 1408833999
Pagini: 400
Dimensiuni: 129 x 198 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.35 kg
Editura: Bloomsbury Publishing
Colecția Bloomsbury Paperbacks
Locul publicării:London, United Kingdom
ISBN-10: 1408833999
Pagini: 400
Dimensiuni: 129 x 198 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.35 kg
Editura: Bloomsbury Publishing
Colecția Bloomsbury Paperbacks
Locul publicării:London, United Kingdom
Caracteristici
Lauded
as
a
brilliant
story
of
Russia
from
within,Stalin's
Childrenwas
selected
as
one
of
the
books
of
the
year
by
Camilla
Long
in
theSunday
Times,
Robert
Salisbury
in
theSpectatorand
Antony
Beevor
in
theSunday
Telegraph
Notă biografică
Owen
Matthews
was
born
in
London
and
spent
part
of
his
childhood
in
America.
He
studied
Modern
History
at
Oxford
University
before
beginning
his
career
as
a
journalist
in
Bosnia.
In
1995
he
accepted
a
job
atThe
Moscow
Times,
a
daily
English-language
newspaper.
He
also
freelanced
for
a
number
of
publications
includingThe
Times,
theSpectatorand
theIndependent.
In
1997,
he
became
a
correspondent
atNewsweekmagazine
in
Moscow
where
he
covered
the
second
Chechen
war.
Owen
was
also
one
of
the
first
journalists
to
witness
the
start
of
the
US
bombing
in
Afghanistan,
2001,
and
went
on
to
cover
the
invasion
of
Iraq,
2003.
His
first
book
on
Russian
history,Stalin's
Children,
was
published
to
great
critical
acclaim
in
2008.
Owen
is
currentlyNewsweekmagazine's
bureau
chief
in
Moscow,
where
he
lives
with
his
wife
and
two
children.
Recenzii
Richly
rewarding
and
hugely
enjoyable,Glorious
Misadventuresis
a
flamboyant
history
of
sea-faring
adventures,
imperial
encounters,
missed
opportunities
and
lost
loves
which
takes
the
reader
back
to
that
long
forgotten
age
when
the
Russians
and
the
Spanish
were
the
masters
of
the
wilderness
between
Alaska
and
California
A thrilling story of swashbuckling adventure and flamboyant derring-do about a neglected but intriguing episode of Russian-American history, Owen Matthews chronicles the shambolic, often-forgotten and short-lived Russian empire in America, combining fresh research with a compelling narrative
Rezanov is the central character in Owen Matthews's enthralling account of Russia's great misfire: its attempt to colonise America. Many know that Russia sold Alaska to America, rather cheaply in 1867, fearing that it had become indefensible. But few know how it had become Russian in the first place ...Glorious Misadventuresis in part this extraordinary man's biography ... His voyage to the Pacific, with shipmates even more mercurial, reads like an implausibly lively historical novel ... The exotic personalities and adventures come against a backdrop of geopolitical tussles between France, Spain, Russia and Britain. Mr Matthews depicts them neatly, and paints enjoyable cameos ... The book bursts with telling details, many of them gruesome ... [An] exemplary account of adventures that could have changed the world
His impressive research has yielded not only a rollicking tale of derring-do, patriotism, endurance, low cunning and occasional bravery, but is a devastating indictment of why Russians made such hopeless colonists . Matthews's vivid and hilarious account illustrated by sketches by the ship's cultured doctor and naturalist, leads up to the final disaster . As with everything else in this enthralling account, Russia lost out through bad timing and bad judgment
The brutality and folly of Russia's bid to conquer America has the makings of grand tragicomedy . This is a book that starts in pretty high gear. The human detail is compelling, the geopolitics well outlined, the brutality and folly . Tragicomic. At its centre Rezanov . Is an engaging antihero. Where it really hits its stride is with the story of Rezanov's hopeless mission to Japan . But this story is more than just an aggregate of quirky, funny details. Matthews has an excellent quick sense of the absurd, and his footnotes are great . But he also manages to spin his analysis into an aphoristic style that's fresh and penetrating without seeming glib . Creeping underneath the historical narrative, too, is a sort of covert travel book. Matthews has been to these places, and gets over a wonderful and personal sense of what Northern Mongolia . Or Spruce Island . Are like now, and might have been like then. Really, this is a blindingly good story extremely well told. Go, read. It will make you laugh, stretch your eyes and give thanks that you don't live in anything remotely resembling late 18th-century Siberia
A moving account of his Russian family's travails in the Soviet Union . Intriguing . Where his book does grip is in its background story of Russia's eastward expansion, driven by its hunger for furs . Matthews has travelled many of the routes these often desperate men took, and his descriptions of them, and of the vast, inhospitable wildernesses through which they travelled, are compelling
A swashbuckling Tsarist Russian in America . Told by Matthews, the story loses none of its strangeness and its swashbuckling verve, reading at times like a cross between Conrad'sHeart of Darknessand Gogol'sthe Government Inspector
The story of the expedition and of how close Russia came to extending its American colonies south to the Mexican border are the subjects of this rich, fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable book
Mr Matthews doesn't need success stories or heroes to shine his entertaining light on this dark and hidden corner of history: his gift for storytelling does that alone
A fascinating byroad of history ... A breathlessly rip-roaring tale
Owen Matthews relates the story of the courtier Nikolai Rezanov's attempts to settle America for Russia. And, were it not for the author's painstaking research and copious footnotes, Rezanov's life would read like an outrageous ripping yarn ... Matthews has an engaging style which makes the complexities of Russian politics less taxing than they might otherwise be. He has travelled to many of the places Rezanov knew and there is a strong thread of travelogue woven into the biography. His finely-tuned sense of the absurd is brought to the fore in the episode where Rezanov is sent by the Tsar to Japan as an emissary ... Rezanov is an astonishing character: his swashbuckling charisma and ambition far outpaced his abilities as a courtier, but he is captivating in both in his triumphs and tragedies. Matthew's footnotes, full of fascinating details, also display his wry humour. He has penned a compelling tale with a flawed hero whose story deserves to be better known, and he more than does his flamboyant subject justice
Generous with eloquent detail ... the facts, as Owen Matthews renders them, are amazing
A thrilling story of swashbuckling adventure and flamboyant derring-do about a neglected but intriguing episode of Russian-American history, Owen Matthews chronicles the shambolic, often-forgotten and short-lived Russian empire in America, combining fresh research with a compelling narrative
Rezanov is the central character in Owen Matthews's enthralling account of Russia's great misfire: its attempt to colonise America. Many know that Russia sold Alaska to America, rather cheaply in 1867, fearing that it had become indefensible. But few know how it had become Russian in the first place ...Glorious Misadventuresis in part this extraordinary man's biography ... His voyage to the Pacific, with shipmates even more mercurial, reads like an implausibly lively historical novel ... The exotic personalities and adventures come against a backdrop of geopolitical tussles between France, Spain, Russia and Britain. Mr Matthews depicts them neatly, and paints enjoyable cameos ... The book bursts with telling details, many of them gruesome ... [An] exemplary account of adventures that could have changed the world
His impressive research has yielded not only a rollicking tale of derring-do, patriotism, endurance, low cunning and occasional bravery, but is a devastating indictment of why Russians made such hopeless colonists . Matthews's vivid and hilarious account illustrated by sketches by the ship's cultured doctor and naturalist, leads up to the final disaster . As with everything else in this enthralling account, Russia lost out through bad timing and bad judgment
The brutality and folly of Russia's bid to conquer America has the makings of grand tragicomedy . This is a book that starts in pretty high gear. The human detail is compelling, the geopolitics well outlined, the brutality and folly . Tragicomic. At its centre Rezanov . Is an engaging antihero. Where it really hits its stride is with the story of Rezanov's hopeless mission to Japan . But this story is more than just an aggregate of quirky, funny details. Matthews has an excellent quick sense of the absurd, and his footnotes are great . But he also manages to spin his analysis into an aphoristic style that's fresh and penetrating without seeming glib . Creeping underneath the historical narrative, too, is a sort of covert travel book. Matthews has been to these places, and gets over a wonderful and personal sense of what Northern Mongolia . Or Spruce Island . Are like now, and might have been like then. Really, this is a blindingly good story extremely well told. Go, read. It will make you laugh, stretch your eyes and give thanks that you don't live in anything remotely resembling late 18th-century Siberia
A moving account of his Russian family's travails in the Soviet Union . Intriguing . Where his book does grip is in its background story of Russia's eastward expansion, driven by its hunger for furs . Matthews has travelled many of the routes these often desperate men took, and his descriptions of them, and of the vast, inhospitable wildernesses through which they travelled, are compelling
A swashbuckling Tsarist Russian in America . Told by Matthews, the story loses none of its strangeness and its swashbuckling verve, reading at times like a cross between Conrad'sHeart of Darknessand Gogol'sthe Government Inspector
The story of the expedition and of how close Russia came to extending its American colonies south to the Mexican border are the subjects of this rich, fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable book
Mr Matthews doesn't need success stories or heroes to shine his entertaining light on this dark and hidden corner of history: his gift for storytelling does that alone
A fascinating byroad of history ... A breathlessly rip-roaring tale
Owen Matthews relates the story of the courtier Nikolai Rezanov's attempts to settle America for Russia. And, were it not for the author's painstaking research and copious footnotes, Rezanov's life would read like an outrageous ripping yarn ... Matthews has an engaging style which makes the complexities of Russian politics less taxing than they might otherwise be. He has travelled to many of the places Rezanov knew and there is a strong thread of travelogue woven into the biography. His finely-tuned sense of the absurd is brought to the fore in the episode where Rezanov is sent by the Tsar to Japan as an emissary ... Rezanov is an astonishing character: his swashbuckling charisma and ambition far outpaced his abilities as a courtier, but he is captivating in both in his triumphs and tragedies. Matthew's footnotes, full of fascinating details, also display his wry humour. He has penned a compelling tale with a flawed hero whose story deserves to be better known, and he more than does his flamboyant subject justice
Generous with eloquent detail ... the facts, as Owen Matthews renders them, are amazing