Before the Modern Russian Revolution
A Memoir About Traveling in the U.S.S.R. in a Time of Transformation
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Before the Modern Russian Revolution
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Narrated by:
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Stacey Melotte
About this listen
Today, when Russia has regained its power on the world stage and Putin is restoring many of the old traditions and systems, it is helpful to understand what Russia was like at the time of transformation set in motion by Gorbachev and continued by Yeltsin. For a time Russia went through a period called "glasnost" and "perestroika" when all things seemed possible and a spirit of democracy was in the air. The Soviet Union was breaking up and everyday citizens were imagining a new democratic future, though this restructuring soon led to a rampant period of new capitalism and crime, before the crackdown and new economic transformation under Putin.
Before the Modern Russian Revolution is a look back at this time of rapid change be a sociologist and anthropologist who traveled to the Russia and other countries that were then part of the Soviet Union. She traveled there three times between 1987 and 1990. This book describes her journey there in 1988 as part of a citizen diplomacy group that offered an opportunity to make personal connections with people in all walks of life. It is an engaging personal account of a journey to the Soviet Union done the "citizen diplomacy" way - meeting people face to face in their homes, schools, churches, courtrooms, and marketplaces. It takes you to the heart of Soviet daily life, where you will meet working mothers, the new entrepreneurs, lawyers, artists, journalist, psychologists, and others. While providing a marked contrast to the lifestyle of Russians today, these portraits help to provide insight into the new society Russia has become.
©2015 Gini Graham Scott (P)2017 Gini Graham ScottListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Great Book, except for the narration.
- By DMH on 11-09-10
By: Peter Hessler
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Midnight in Siberia
- A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia
- By: David Greene
- Narrated by: David Greene
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 176
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 163
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 163
Through the stories of fellow travelers, Greene explores the challenges and opportunities facing the new Russia: a nation that boasts open elections and newfound prosperity yet still continues to endure oppression, corruption, and stark inequality. Set against the wintery landscape of Siberia, Greene’s lively travel narrative offers a glimpse into the soul of 20th century Russia: how its people remember their history and look forward to the future.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Long String of NPR Short Reports
- By Sara on 04-13-15
By: David Greene
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Strange Stones
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 157
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 136
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 139
Full of unforgettable figures and an unrelenting spirit of adventure, Strange Stones is a far-ranging, thought-provoking collection of Peter Hessler’s best reportage - a dazzling display of the powerful storytelling, shrewd cultural insight, and warm sense of humor that are the trademarks of his work. Over the last decade, as a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three books, Peter Hessler has lived in Asia and the United States, writing as both native and knowledgeable outsider in these two very different regions.
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4 out of 5 stars
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funny, entertaining
- By Katherine on 08-02-13
By: Peter Hessler
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50 Children
- One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany
- By: Steven Pressman
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
In early 1939, few Americans were thinking about the darkening storm clouds over Europe. Nor did they have much sympathy for the growing number of Jewish families that were increasingly threatened and brutalized by Adolf Hitler's policies in Germany and Austria. But one ordinary American couple decided that something had to be done. Despite overwhelming obstacles - both in Europe and in the United States - Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus made a bold and unprecedented decision to travel into Nazi Germany in an effort to save a group of Jewish children.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I didn't want it to end
- By David Shear on 05-07-14
By: Steven Pressman
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See You Again in Pyongyang
- By: Travis Jeppesen
- Narrated by: Will Collyer
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 114
From terrifying missile tests, its unmissable Olympic cheering squad, and the war of words between President Trump and Kim Jong Un - not to mention stranger-than-fiction stories of purges and assassinations - news from North Korea has dominated global headlines. But what is life there actually like? In See You Again in Pyongyang, Travis Jeppesen, the first American to complete a university program in North Korea, culls from his experiences living, traveling, and studying in the country to create a multifaceted portrait of the country and its idiosyncratic capital city.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Save me from the hippie millennials with a PhD
- By Verified purchaser on 06-21-18
By: Travis Jeppesen
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The Blue Sweater
- Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World
- By: Jacqueline Novogratz
- Narrated by: Jacqueline Novogratz
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 349
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 284
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 289
The Blue Sweater is the inspiring story of a woman who left a career in international banking to spend her life on a quest to understand global poverty. It all started back home in Virginia, with the blue sweater, a gift that quickly became her prized possession - until the day she outgrew it and gave it away to Goodwill. Eleven years later in Africa, she spotted a young boy wearing that very sweater, with her name still on the tag inside.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Heartfelt Testament
- By Gallantly Rabbit! on 01-23-11
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The International Bank of Bob
- Connecting Our World One $25 Kiva Loan at a Time
- By: Bob Harris
- Narrated by: Bob Harris
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
Hired by ForbesTraveler.com to review some of the most luxurious accommodations on Earth, and then inspired by a chance encounter in Dubai with the impoverished workers whose backbreaking jobs create such opulence, Bob Harris had an epiphany: He would turn his own good fortune into an effort to make lives like theirs better.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderfully entertaining and accessible book
- By Tim on 01-15-14
By: Bob Harris
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Shortest Way Home
- One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future
- By: Pete Buttigieg
- Narrated by: Pete Buttigieg
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 5,118
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 4,597
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,574
Once described by The Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of", Pete Buttigieg, the 36-year-old Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has improbably emerged as one of the nation's most visionary politicians. First elected in 2011, Buttigieg left a successful business career to move back to his hometown, previously tagged by Newsweek as a "dying city", and transformed it into a shining model of urban reinvention.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Reveals a Person Wise & Experienced & Literate
- By dbbks3 on 03-17-19
By: Pete Buttigieg
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Factory Girls
- From Village to City in a Changing China
- By: Leslie T. Chang
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 421
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 265
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Story4 out of 5 stars 261
A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America's shores remade our own country a century ago.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Living in Shenzhen - and What A Disappointment
- By Abstraction on 03-01-10
By: Leslie T. Chang
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China Road
- A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power
- By: Rob Gifford
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 603
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 332
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 329
National Public Radio's Beijing correspondent Rob Gifford recounts his travels along Route 312, the Chinese Mother Road, the longest route in the world's most populous nation. Based on his successful NPR radio series, China Road draws on Gifford's 20 years of observing first-hand this rapidly transforming country, as he travels east to west, from Shanghai to China's border with Kazakhstan. As he takes listeners on this journey, he also takes them through China's past and present while he tries to make sense of this complex nation's potential future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Outstanding Book on China
- By Sarda on 08-13-07
By: Rob Gifford
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China's Second Continent
- How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa
- By: Howard W. French
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 299
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 262
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 257
An exciting, hugely revealing account of China’s burgeoning presence in Africa - a developing empire already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people. A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China in Africa. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting, French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth.
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5 out of 5 stars
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He knows Both Africa and China
- By Malick Tchakpedeou on 12-01-16
By: Howard W. French
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Just Like Us
- The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America
- By: Helen Thorpe
- Narrated by: Paula Christensen
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4 out of 5 stars 61
Just Like Us tells the story of four high school students whose parents entered this country illegally from Mexico. All four of the girls have grown up in the United States, and all four want to live the American dream, but only two have documents. As the girls attempt to make it into college, they discover that only the legal pair see a clear path forward. A coming-of-age story about girlhood and friendship, as well as the resilience required to transcend poverty, Just Like Us is also a book about identity.
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1 out of 5 stars
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I wanted to listen but...
- By PurpleSage on 03-22-14
By: Helen Thorpe
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Endgame
- Bobby Fischer’s Remarkable Rise and Fall—from America’s Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness
- By: Frank Brady
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 930
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 770
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 772
From Frank Brady, who wrote one of the best-selling books on Bobby Fischer of all time and who was himself a friend of Fischer’s, comes an impressively researched biography that for the first time completely captures the remarkable arc of Bobby Fischer’s life. When Bobby Fischer passed away in January 2008, he left behind a confounding legacy. Everyone knew the basics of his life—he began as a brilliant youngster, then became the pride of American chess, then took a sharp turn, struggling with paranoia and mental illness. But nobody truly understood him.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Trajedy
- By Roy on 02-27-11
By: Frank Brady
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Bend, Not Break
- A Life in Two Worlds
- By: Ping Fu, MeiMei Fox
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
Ping Fu knows what it’s like to be a child soldier, a factory worker, and a political prisoner. To be beaten and raped for the crime of being born into a well-educated family. To be deported with barely enough money for a plane ticket to a bewildering new land. To start all over, without family or friends, as a maid, waitress, and student. Ping Fu also knows what it’s like to be a pioneering software programmer, an innovator, a CEO, and Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A true account as good as any Horatio Alger story!
- By Roy B. Paschal on 01-14-13
By: Ping Fu, and others
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Levittown
- Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in America's Legendary Suburb
- By: David Kushner
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
In the decade after World War II , one entrepreneurial family helped thousands of people buy into the American dream of owning a home. The Levitts, William, Alfred, and their father, Abe, pooled their talents to create storybook towns with affordable little houses. They laid out the welcome mat - but not to everyone. Levittown had a Whites-only policy.
By: David Kushner
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Street of Eternal Happiness
- Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road
- By: Rob Schmitz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace's Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city's sleek skyline a brighter future, and a chance to rewrite their destinies.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Deserving of better audio
- By Rachael on 02-19-18
By: Rob Schmitz
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The Almost Nearly Perfect People
- Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia
- By: Michael Booth
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 663
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 585
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 575
Journalist Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians for more than 10 years, and he has grown increasingly frustrated with the rose-tinted view of this part of the world offered up by the Western media. In this timely audiobook, he leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success, and, most intriguing of all, what they think of one another.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Obsessed with bad politics
- By Erik on 09-07-20
By: Michael Booth
What listeners say about Before the Modern Russian Revolution
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Katarzyna Zuza Zasada
- 06-20-22
Preachy
I was really looking forward to listening to this book because it sounded really interesting and I have an interest in Russian History. I could not even make make it through the first chapter. Way to preachy. The author, at least from what I was able to bear, thinks a little too highly of herself and drips arrogance.
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