Saturated with statistics and comparisons with the Chinese experience, Smiths volume is an excellent summary of the deep cultural and socio-economic causes and continuities of the revolutions of 1917. (Anton Fedyashin, European History Quarterly, Vol. 47)

Smith's Russia in Revolution is an authoritative view of a seismic event, but also much more. By covering nearly thirty years from 1890, he illuminates what Franco Venturi called the roots of revolution, profiling the creation of a revolutionary generation as well as the fall-out of the 1920s: he also deals in detail with the civil wars that followed 1917. The result is a panoramic view of an upheaval which was cultural and economic as well as political; like Raymond Carrs history of modern Spain, it far transcends the limitations of a 'general history.' Above all it shows, impartially and decisively, both why the revolution failed to deliver its promises, and why it happened in the first place. (Roy Foster, University of Oxford)

A thorough study. (James Gallen, Roads to the Great War)

Among the best one-volume introductions to not only the history of the revolution but also of late tsarism, the Civil War (1918-21), and the years of the New Economic Policy. (Mark Edele, Australian Book Review)

...a major milestone in the international debates on the revolution... Smith's brilliant work will be invaluable for students of history, both in Russia and abroad, and for all those interested in global history in general and the Russian Revolution in particular. (Ivan Sablin, History)

Well-researched, extremely balanced, nicely nuanced, and very readable. (JP O'Malley, Irish Examiner)

The most expansive history of the 1917 revolution available... Smith fairly and intelligently arbitrates the great debates among historians over how to interpret the revolution. (Robert Levgold, Foreign Affairs)

In what is the most assured general history yet to appear, Smith uses his deep knowledge of 20th-century Russia to place the upheavals in their larger social and historical contexts. (Tony Barber, Financial Times)

Laudable. (Sean Sheehan, Dublin Review of Books)

A useful overview... fair and balanced... Book of the month. (Socialist Review)

Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History 2018