Towards the Flame

Book excerpt: TLS BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016 FINANCIAL TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015 WINNER OF THE PUSHKIN HOUSE RUSSIAN BOOK PRIZE 2016 'Magisterial... reveals how much is at stake for world order in Ukraine and Syria.' Rachel Polonsky 'As much as anything, World War I turned on the fate of Ukraine' The decision to go to war in 1914 had catastrophic consequences for Russia. The result was revolution, civil war and famine in 1917-20, followed by decades of communist rule. Dominic Lieven's powerful and original book, based on exhaustive and unprecedented study in Russian and many other foreign archives, explains why this suicidal decision was made and explores the world of the men who made it, thereby consigning their entire class to death or exile and making their country the victim of a uniquely terrible political experiment under Lenin and Stalin. Dominic Lieven is a Senior Research Fellow of Trinity College,Cambridge University, and a Fellow of the British Academy. His book Russia Against Napoleon (Penguin) won the Wolfson Prize for History and the Prize of the Fondation Napoleon for the best foreign work on the Napoleonic era.