Product Description
A Kingdom and a Village
Author: Simon Morrison
Format: Hardback
A One-Thousand-Year History of Moscow
An erudite and entertaining history of Moscow, a city whose rich past offers crucial insight into contemporary global politics
'Monumental' — Sunday Times
'Brilliant' — Times Literary Supplement
'A marvellous book' — HELEN RAPPAPORT, author of The Rebel Romanov
'Every page pulses with individual stories and historical insights' — MARK GALEOTTI, author of A Short History of Russia
Moscow stands at the centre of a nation comprising eleven percent of the globe's landmass, eleven time zones and nearly one hundred and fifty million people, some thirteen million of whom live in the capital. A Kingdom and a Village vividly brings to life Russia's heart and soul, tracing its transformation from a 'big village' into a metropolis of vast geopolitical import.
It is a stranger-than-fiction arc. The last century alone has featured invasions and battles, the destruction and reconstruction of sacred landmarks, and the collapse of the Soviet republic - not to mention the rise of an authoritarian leader who is a keen student of Russian history.
Morrison reaches back to the city's founding as a fortress on a river nearly a millennium ago. In the following centuries, any number of external forces - from Tatar Mongols and Swedes to Napoleon and Hitler - set their sights on Moscow, bolstering its self-conception as a glittering prize and site of perpetual defence and resurrection.
Understanding Moscow not only unlocks the spellbinding mysteries of Russia's past, but also the grim logic of its present. A Kingdom and a Village is an essential guide to a people and a nation.
'Magisterial ... gripping' — BEN RHODES, author of The World As It Is
'A mesmerising tale of how Moscow came to be' — JILL DOUGHERTY, author of My Russia
'Morrison is the perfect biographer of Moscow' — SHAUN WALKER, author of The Illegals
About the Author
SIMON MORRISON is a professor of music and Slavic languages and literatures at Princeton University.
He is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and London Review of Books and has written for Time Magazine, New York Review of Books, and New York Times. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and holds a PhD and an MFA in Music History from Princeton University.
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