Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939--1945

by Catherine Merridale
Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939--1945  
published 2007 by Picador
binding Paperback
isbn 0312426526   (isbn13: 9780312426521)
pages 480
description They died in vast numbers, eight million men and women driven forward in suicidal charges, shattered by German shells and tanks. They were the soldier...more
date added
02-09-07



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Graham
Graham added it
07/15/08

Great social history of the Red Army: This is a very well-written book about the people who fought in the Red Army and not a military history of that Army and its campaigns. As anyone who has ever spoken to fathers and uncles about WW2 knows, it is very difficult to get these men to open up. The author makes clear that the problem is even greater for members of the Red Army. Nevertheless, she did get real stories from the frontoviki and she weaves their stories beautifully into this terrific his...more
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James
James rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
02/16/08

Read in February, 2008
A look at the life of everyday soldiers in the Red Army from the disastrous Nazi invasion in 1941 to the carnage-filled march into Berlin in 1945. Ivan's War avoids detailed descriptions of battles, instead focusing on the experiences and sentiments of Soviet soldiers during a time of great upheaval that resulted in a complete overhaul of the Red Army while it was fighting. The later chapters (about the march west and demobilization after the war) are the best and most interesting.

O...more
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Craig
Craig rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
11/07/07

Read in January, 2007
Great book for anyone interested in history - especially WWII history. We always hear about the campaigns that the Americans and British fought. This is completely understandable, but to get a full picture of WWII (the greatest man-made disaster in human history) you have to consider the Eastern Front. The U.S. lost roughly 300,000 people in WWII. Russia lost between 20 and 30 million. Between 8 and 9 German soldiers that died in the war died fighting the Russians, not the Americans or Briti...more
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Heather
Heather rated it: 3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars
06/20/08

bookshelves: non-fiction, russia-ussr
Read in March, 2008
I'm a WWII buff, but was more motivated to read this book from the standpoint of having had a very close, dear friend who was drafted (along with the rest of his first year university class) into the Red Army for the Finnish campaign, wounded twice in WWII, and had mentioned some / but never much detail about his own experiences during the war. I'd also spent quite some time as a student in Kharkov, which was occupied twice. This personal connection to the Russian front is what attracted me to t...more
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John
John rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
01/03/08

bookshelves: military-history
Read in November, 2007
This was an extremely good book, that will give the reader a greater understanding of the privation and utter misery under which the regular Red Army soldier fought during World War 2. What is particularly gripping are the accounts of soldiers being forced into unwinnable battles by inept leaders, and then being shot or imprisoned when they retreated. The book also touches on the lives of ordinary Soviet citizens, and what life was like for them as war raged around them. This group in particu...more
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John
John rated it: 5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
04/02/08

bookshelves: soviet-history
Read in March, 2007
The mind reels at the fathomless suffering of the foot soldier in the Soviet army during WWII as well as their capacity to survive any hardship - short of murder - and privation - short of death by starvation - that man can devise. It added immensely to the understanding that I am developing of the nearly boundless suffering that the Soviet people endured from the Bolshevik Rev through the death of Stalin. Unimaginable.
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Jon
Jon rated it: 5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
03/23/08

Read in January, 2007

A Russian grunts view of the Second World War. With all the hoopla
around Ken Burns series and "The Greatest Generation", reading this book will be a salutary corrective to the notion that the US military defeated Hitler.

At the cost of staggering losses of life, the Red Army pushed the Nazis out of Russia under condtitions that are just unimaginable today.
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Jason
Jason rated it: 5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
08/19/08

Read in November, 2006
For a sociologist, she definitely wrote a groundbreaking military history on the Soviet Army of the Second World War. She has humanized them in the way Ambrose humanized the American soldier of the period. In short, the book is excellent, and any student of the Second World War would do well to read this book.
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Bill
Bill rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
06/08/08

I'm glad I was not a Russian during WWII. The author looks at the Red Army from a soldier's perspective. Unlike other historical non-fiction books about the Eastern Front, this puts a human face on a viewpoint often lost under the massive shadow of Stalin.
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Jeff
Jeff rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
10/17/07

Read in November, 2006
An excellent portrayal of the Soviet experience in World War II. Exposes the contradictions and secret shames of the "Great Patriotic War."
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David
David rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
01/29/08

bookshelves: military-history, world-war-two
Read in January, 2008
This book was a unique insight of the Russian soldier side of WW2. Most books on the Eastern Front focus mainly on the German point of view. This book is very well written..
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Christopher
Christopher rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
04/03/08

bookshelves: nonfiction
Read in January, 2007
An historical ethnography, it gives the reader an insider's view of what it was like to be a foot soldier in the Red Army.
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Pat
Pat rated it: 2 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars
05/28/08

Read in January, 2008
pretty dull.
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Bighuts
Bighuts marked it as to-read
08/15/08

bookshelves: to-read
 

Cathy
Cathy marked it as to-read
07/28/08

bookshelves: to-read
 

Spencer
Spencer marked it as to-read
07/26/08

bookshelves: history-ish, to-read
 

Weloytty
Weloytty rated it: 3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars
07/24/08

 

Glenn
Glenn rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
08/16/08

bookshelves: general-non-fiction
Read in September, 2006
 

Amadeus
Amadeus marked it as to-read
07/13/08

bookshelves: to-read
 

Michael Kucirek
Michael is currently reading it
07/09/08

bookshelves: currently-reading
 


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book data (includes all editions)

avg rating (all editions): 3.98 (44 ratings)
number of reviews: 13






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