Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin (Paperback) by Catherine Merridale

from Clara53

The efforts involved in the writing of this book are truly admirable. Indisputable amount of research (judging by 65 pages of Notes at the end - showing where the information in the text came from) is certainly praiseworthy. The text is preceded by illustrations and maps. Sadly, in the advanced c...

from aadyer

Hard work, and difficult to engage with in the earlier chapters for me. I've read a bit of Russian history and yet I found this at times uninvolving and a little disappointing. However, the mysticism of the Kremlin does come through and one can't help be intrigued by the place, although I suspect...

from bookwormgeek

Catherine Merridale's "Red Fortress" is an extremely fascinating read. It offers a detailed account of the Kremlin site from it's earliest tribal beginnings through the fall of Communism. Merridale does a good job of providing an overview if Russian history, with a view towards how it affected th...

from Matthew1982

For a topic as formidable as "the entire history of the Kremlin and its role as a building and symbol for about 800 years", Catherine Merridale's book is surprisingly readable. Unsurprisingly, it features numerous famous and infamous figures from Russian history - Peter and Catherine the Great, I...

from RoseCityReader

Red Fortress is an accessible "beginners" history of Russia, using the Kremlin to frame 800 years worth of information. Catherine Merridale has an easy, almost casual style with her subject, sometimes engaging her readers directly, with sentences such as, "When I try to grasp what it was like to ...