Lenin on the Train

Absorbing. --Washington Post Catherine Merridale is one ofthe foremost foreign historians of Russia, combining wry insights with deepsympathy for the human beings suffering the tragedies she writes about . . . Leninon the Train combines diplomatic intrigue, spycraft, toweringpersonalities, bureaucratic bungling, military history and ideology. --The Economist Merridale's account benefits from her thorough research . . . andvividly reminds us of how the fateful events of 1917 depended on a seeminglysmall episode. --The New York Times Book Review Catherine Merridale, a distinguished historian of Russia and the SovietUnion . . . uses [Lenin's] journey as the centerpiece of a broader account ofthe fall of czarism and the mounting Bolshevik pressure on the government thatreplaced it. --Wall Street Journal Merridale's excellent book . . . does an exemplary job of covering thecomplex history of the denials, evasions and cover-ups perpetrated by the Bolshevikleader and his successors. --Dallas Morning News Memorable . . . a richly detailed book that turns familiar materialinto an intense adventure. --Minneapolis Star Tribune Merridale tells the extraordinary story of Lenin's history-makingjourney. Drenched in atmosphere, [her] account has all the stuff of a spythriller. --Newsday In vivid prose, [Merridale]recounts the whole engine of revolution . . . A superbly written narrativehistory that draws together and makes sense of scattered data, anecdotes, andminor episodes, affording us a bigger picture of events that we now understandto be transformative. --Kirkus Reviews History recovered as livingdrama . . . Merridale smuggles readers onto a train leaving Zurich in April1917 that is carrying explosive freight: Vladimir Lenin, the firebrand who willkindle a revolutionary conflagration in Russia. --Booklist A colorful, suspenseful, andwell-documented narrative. --Publishers Weekly The suberb, funny, fascinatingstory of Lenin's trans-European rail journey to power and how it shook theworld --Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard (Best Books of 2016) Twice I missed my stop on the Tube reading this book . . . this is ajewel among histories, taking a single episode from the penultimate year of theGreat War, illuminating a continent, a revolution and a series of psychologiesin a moment of cataclysm and doing it with wit, judgment and an eye for tellingdetail. . . . Catherine Merridale is one of those historians whose work allowsyou to understand something more about the world we inhabit now. --David Aaronovitch, The Times Catherine Merridale, an experienced and enthusiastic historian ofRussia, has chosen the pivotal moment of Lenin's slow and halting odyssey tohang her history of how this ruthless fanatic hijacked a revolution. --The Observer A sharply written, authoritative account of Lenin's train journey --Financial Times Merridale brings to her subject a scholar's deep knowledge and alively narrative style. It is a work that enlightens as well as it entertains. --Literary Review