Richard Pipes

Groundbreaking in its inclusiveness, enthralling in its narrative of a movement whose purpose, in the words of Leon Trotsky, was "to overthrow the world," The Russian Revolution draws conclusions that have aroused great controversy in this country. Richard Pipes argues convincingly that the Russian Revolution was an intellectual, rather than a class, uprising; that it was steeped in terror from its very outset; and that it was not a revolution at...

Richard Pipes conducts a succinct inquest, asking: Why did tsarism fall virtually overnight? Why did the Bolsheviks - the smallest of the three main Russian radical parties - triumph? Why did Stalin succeed Lenin? In answering these questions, Pipes gives us our clearest picture yet of the vulnerability of the tsarist system as well as of the ruthless opportunism that enabled Lenin to seize the reins of power. Dispelling years of revisionist mythology,...

Traces the development of private property, beginning with ancient Greece and Rome.