Shauna's review
The Russian Revolution by Alan Moorehead
I'm an avid fiction reader, but I tend to read non-fiction with the attitude that it's good for me, but not exactly enjoyable. This book is the absolute exception. The book is well-researched and invaluable in helping to understand the background of the revolution and how that revolution sowed the seeds to what followed. It's also the only history book in which I have ever marked passages simply for the poetics of the writing.
"For the first few days many of the demonstrators did not know where they were going to go or what they were supposed to do: they simply wanted to protest. But then, as more and more men poured into the streets, the crowds took confidence from their own numbers and they found with astonishment and exhilaration how very much they were not alone: not just a reckless few, but a host of comrades in a fighting mood. And so they accepted the leaders who appeared, and they went along, and in the absence of personal enemies they attacked symbols."
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"For the first few days many of the demonstrators did not know where they were going to go or what they were supposed to do: they simply wanted to protest. But then, as more and more men poured into the streets, the crowds took confidence from their own numbers and they found with astonishment and exhilaration how very much they were not alone: not just a reckless few, but a host of comrades in a fighting mood. And so they accepted the leaders who appeared, and they went along, and in the absence of personal enemies they attacked symbols."
Re...more
