LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
War-torn, unstable and virtually bankrupt, revolutionary Russia tried to light its way to the future with the fitful glow of science. It succeeded through terror, folly and crime - but also through courage, imagination and even genius. Stalin believed that science should serve the state and with many disciplines having virtually unlimited funds, by the time of his death in 1953, the Soviet Union boasted the largest and best-funded scientific establishment in history - at once the glory and the laughing stock of the intellectual world. The human cost of this peculiar marriage between the state and its scientists was horrendous, yet, in Stalin and the Scientists, Simon Ings makes clear what Soviet science has done for us.
Review
‘Endlessly entertaining . . . lively, dramatic, intriguing and often very funny.’ (The Times)
‘One of the finest, most gripping surveys of the history of Russia science in the twentieth century . . . A fascinating work that both inspires and terrifies.’ (Douglas Smith, author of Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy)
‘Fascinating . . . Well researched and written in a lively and engaging style, it grips like a good novel.’ (Sunday Business Post)
‘A dazzling, often astonishing prism through which to view the Soviet experiment.’ (Peter Pomerantsev)