Love The Vavilov Affair? Readers share 100 books like The Vavilov Affair...

By Mark Popovsky,

Here are 100 books that The Vavilov Affair fans have personally recommended if you like The Vavilov Affair. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956

Istvan Hargittai Author Of Buried Glory: Portraits of Soviet Scientists

From my list on scientific discovery unfavorable Soviet realities.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been interested in the nature of scientific discovery, in scientific discoverers, and in particular in how science may operate and even be successful under oppressive regimes. I have lived under a variety of political systems, which has strengthened this personal interest. I have known a number of the heroes of these books and have written about them, too.

Istvan's book list on scientific discovery unfavorable Soviet realities

Istvan Hargittai Why did Istvan love this book?

I found it very interesting how this book provides the background of the development of Soviet nuclear science and the creation of the atomic and hydrogen bombs in the Soviet Union.

It is written by a historian; the narrative is accurate yet accessible. It helped me understand how a country having suffered terrible losses in a devastating war and obsolete infrastructure could become one of the two mightiest superpowers due to its ruthless concentration of resources to a chosen goal and a group of scientists among the world’s best. 

By David Holloway,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Stalin and the Bomb as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For forty years the Soviet-American nuclear arms race dominated world politics, yet the Soviet nuclear establishment was shrouded in secrecy. Now that the Cold War is over and the Soviet Union has collapsed, it is possible to answer questions that have intrigued policymakers and the public for years. How did the Soviet Union build its atomic and hydrogen bombs? What role did espionage play? How did the American atomic monopoly affect Stalin's foreign policy? What was the relationship between Soviet nuclear scientists and the country's political leaders? This spellbinding book answers these questions by tracing the history of Soviet nuclear…


Book cover of Memoirs

Istvan Hargittai Author Of Buried Glory: Portraits of Soviet Scientists

From my list on scientific discovery unfavorable Soviet realities.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been interested in the nature of scientific discovery, in scientific discoverers, and in particular in how science may operate and even be successful under oppressive regimes. I have lived under a variety of political systems, which has strengthened this personal interest. I have known a number of the heroes of these books and have written about them, too.

Istvan's book list on scientific discovery unfavorable Soviet realities

Istvan Hargittai Why did Istvan love this book?

For me, the most interesting aspect of this autobiography is its honesty. I already knew a lot about Sakharov when I read this book. I learned about Sakharov’s development that he was initially a devoted team member providing the most lethal weapons to a dictatorship, and how he evolved and eventually became a most fearless and forceful human rights advocate in a ruthless dictatorship—in the post-Stalin Soviet era.

I learned how he had opposed the Soviet leader Khrushchev and how he then became enemy No. 1 of the regime under Brezhnev. I found it also instructive how Gorbachev continued playing the role of his predecessors and how he found a formidable opponent in Sakharov. All this I find sadly relevant when I look at today’s Russia and its dictator.

By Andrei D. Sakharov,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Memoirs as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The late Soviet physicist, activist, and Nobel laureate describes his upbringing, scientific work, rejection of Soviet repression, peace and human rights concerns, marriage and family, and persecution by the KGB


Book cover of My World Line: An Informal Autobiography

Istvan Hargittai Author Of Buried Glory: Portraits of Soviet Scientists

From my list on scientific discovery unfavorable Soviet realities.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been interested in the nature of scientific discovery, in scientific discoverers, and in particular in how science may operate and even be successful under oppressive regimes. I have lived under a variety of political systems, which has strengthened this personal interest. I have known a number of the heroes of these books and have written about them, too.

Istvan's book list on scientific discovery unfavorable Soviet realities

Istvan Hargittai Why did Istvan love this book?

I find it fascinating how rich a source Russia has been for talent and how poorly it has utilized them or ejected them. I liked Gamow’s personality and his informal style. Most of all, I find it amazing how multifaceted his talent was and that he was not afraid to come up with ideas—some fruitful, some mistaken, but always original—in any area of science, regardless of whether he had the proper training in it or not.

The only disappointment was that the autobiography stopped at one point. To me, Gamow symbolizes one of the most important characteristics of scientists: curiosity. In addition, I learned a great deal about the conditions for science in the early period of the Soviet Union.

By George Gamow,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked My World Line as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

George Gamow, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist and an early advocate and developer of Lemaître's Big Bang theory. was awarded the Kalinga Prize by UNESCO for his popularization of science. Born in Odessa, Russia, he was a colleague of Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Peter Kapitza and Francis Crick. He was a fellow at Cambridge, Univ. of Copenhagen, Univ. of Leningrad, Univ. of London, Washington Univ. (Wash., DC), Univ. of California, Berkeley, and Univ. of Colorado. My World Line is an intimate portrait of an unorthodox, witty and warm man, whose free spirit and creative intuition endeared him to his colleagues…


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Book cover of Kapitza in Cambridge and Moscow: Life and Letters of a Russian Physicist

Istvan Hargittai Author Of Buried Glory: Portraits of Soviet Scientists

From my list on scientific discovery unfavorable Soviet realities.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been interested in the nature of scientific discovery, in scientific discoverers, and in particular in how science may operate and even be successful under oppressive regimes. I have lived under a variety of political systems, which has strengthened this personal interest. I have known a number of the heroes of these books and have written about them, too.

Istvan's book list on scientific discovery unfavorable Soviet realities

Istvan Hargittai Why did Istvan love this book?

I find Petr Kapitza a hero, and this book provides both his personal and societal background and his science and actions. I am fascinated by a scientist who, amid conditions of the Soviet system, remained indifferent to titles and positions but was not afraid to use his international recognition to protest the actions of one of the world’s worst dictators.

I also found the book's message about Kapitza to be most convincing in the contribution of one of the editors, David Shoenberg, who had a close relationship with Kapitza and was a significant scientist and discoverer.

By J.W. Boag (editor), P.E. Rubinin (editor), D. Shoenberg (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Kapitza in Cambridge and Moscow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The unusual career of the famous Soviet physicist Peter Kapitza was divided between Cambridge and Moscow. In Cambridge he was a protege of Rutherford and while studying there he opened up a new area of research in magnetism and low temperature physics. However, in 1934, during a summer visit to the Soviet Union, Kapitza was prevented from returning to Cambridge and remained in Moscow for the rest of his long life. In spite of many ups and downs and considerable difficulties in his relations with top political figures in the Kremlin, he continued to enhance his scientific reputation and late…


Book cover of Policing Stalin's Socialism: Repression and Social Order in the Soviet Union, 1924-1953

Lynne Viola Author Of Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine

From my list on Stalin’s Great Terror.

Why am I passionate about this?

Lynne Viola is a University Professor of Russian history at the University of Toronto. Educated at Barnard and Princeton, she has carried out research in Russian and Ukrainian archives for over 30 years. Among her books, are two dealing with Stalinist repression: Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine and The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements. Both are based on work in previously classified archives, including the archives of the political police.

Lynne's book list on Stalin’s Great Terror

Lynne Viola Why did Lynne love this book?

This monograph changed the way historians understand the Great Terror. Shearer focuses on state fears not of foreign invasion, but of domestic social disorder. Based on voluminous archival research, he explores the structural prerequisites to the “mass operations” of the Great Terror by looking at the social purging campaigns of the mid-1930s and the practices of civil and political policing.

By David R. Shearer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Policing Stalin's Socialism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Policing Stalin's Socialism is one of the first books to emphasize the importance of social order repression by Stalin's Soviet regime in contrast to the traditional emphasis of historians on political repression. Based on extensive examination of new archival materials, David Shearer finds that most repression during the Stalinist dictatorship of the 1930s was against marginal social groups such as petty criminals, deviant youth, sectarians, and the unemployed and unproductive.

It was because Soviet leaders regarded social disorder as more of a danger to the state than political opposition that they instituted a new form of class war to defend…


Book cover of Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine

Roger R. Reese Author Of The Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856-1917

From my list on Stalinism from every angle.

Why am I passionate about this?

Roger Reese has studied, researched, and or taught Soviet history since 1984. He has been on the faculty of Texas A&M University since 1990. He has published five books and numerous articles and book chapters on the military history of Russia and the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr. book prize for his most recent book, The Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856-1917.

Roger's book list on Stalinism from every angle

Roger R. Reese Why did Roger love this book?

This book is very interesting because it puts the reader inside the workings of the great terror at the local level with the words of the perpetrators themselves. The author uses the records of trials of numerous low level secret police interrogators to show how the regime created the conditions under which the policemen rationalized how they understood their work and made it possible for them to persecute innocent people.

By Lynne Viola,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Between the summer of 1937 and November 1938, the Stalinist regime arrested over 1.5 million people for "counterrevolutionary" and "anti-Soviet" activity and either summarily executed or exiled them to the Gulag. While we now know a great deal about the experience of victims of the Great Terror, we know almost nothing about the lower- and middle-level Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD), or secret police, cadres who carried out Stalin's murderous policies.
Unlike the postwar, public trials of Nazi war criminals, NKVD operatives were tried secretly. And what exactly happened in those courtrooms was unknown until now.

In what has been…


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Book cover of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier,

The coaching book that's for all of us, not just coaches.

It's the best-selling book on coaching this century, with 15k+ online reviews. Brené Brown calls it "a classic". Dan Pink said it was "essential".

It is practical, funny, and short, and "unweirds" coaching. Whether you're a parent, a teacher,…

Book cover of The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties

Michael Isikoff Author Of Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump

From my list on Russian espionage.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child of the Cold War, I was fascinated from an early age by Russia—and the history of U.S.-Soviet relations. I still remember devouring everything I could about many of the events of the 1960’s—the Cuban Missile Crisis, the coup that replaced Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. These and much else from this period inspired me to become a journalist. And while I have had a wide-ranging and occasionally globe-trotting career, returning to the subject of U.S.-Russia relations in Russian Roulette  and the feeling that we made a genuine contribution to contemporary history—was unusually satisfying.

Michael's book list on Russian espionage

Michael Isikoff Why did Michael love this book?

No book exposed the horrors of Josef Stalin’s purges more graphically and with greater power than Robert Conquest’s epic, The Great Terror. The book chronicled how a paranoid Stalin, convinced his power was threatened by his rival Leon Trotsky and his allies, unleashed a wave of terror by his country’s NKVD—a forerunner of the KGB--  that decimated the Soviet leadership and its military with millions of Russians executed or marched to Siberian prison camps. While Stalin’s henchmen staged mock “trials” in Moscow, marked by phony confessions, extracted by torture, liberal apologists in the West sought to justify Stalin’s lunatic crackdown. I read this book in college and it has stayed with me for years-- providing an eye-opening lesson in the willingness of those of all political stripes to turn a blind eye to the evils of totalitarianism.

By Robert Conquest,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Great Terror as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Robert Conquest's The Great Terror is the book that revealed the horrors of Stalin's regime to the West. This definitive fiftieth anniversary edition features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.

One of the most important books ever written about the Soviet Union, The Great Terror revealed to the West for the first time the true extent and nature Stalin's purges in the 1930s, in which around a million people were tortured and executed or sent to labour camps on political grounds. Its publication caused a widespread reassessment of Communism itself.

This definitive fiftieth anniversary edition gathers together the wealth of…


Book cover of Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire

Lisa Dickey Author Of Bears in the Streets: Three Journeys Across a Changing Russia

From my list on the Russian people.

Why am I passionate about this?

Lisa Dickey is an author and book collaborator who’s helped write 20+ nonfiction books, including 10 New York Times Best Sellers. She’s also a Russophile from way back:  her first post-college job was working as a nanny at the U.S. embassy in Moscow during the last days of the Soviet Union. Lisa began her writing career in St. Petersburg in the mid-1990s, writing for the Moscow Times and USA Today, and she’s the author of Bears in the Streets: Three Journeys Across a Changing Russia.

Lisa's book list on the Russian people

Lisa Dickey Why did Lisa love this book?

I’m recommending this because if have any interest in Russia but haven’t yet read it, you simply must. No, really, listen: You must. David Remnick writes like Muhammad Ali boxed: with grace, power, and an unfair amount of skill. This is a deeply researched, carefully crafted, incredibly absorbing account of the final days of the Soviet Union. Never mind the “tomb” title; the book is filled with colorful characters and delicious slices of life, all captured during a time of historic upheaval.

By David Remnick,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Lenin's Tomb as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times 

From the editor of The New Yorker: a riveting account of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which has become the standard book on the subject. Lenin’s Tomb combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism. Remnick takes us through the tumultuous 75-year period of Communist rule leading up to the collapse and gives us the voices of those who lived through it, from democratic activists to Party members, from anti-Semites to Holocaust survivors, from Gorbachev…


Book cover of Forever Nineteen

Alexandra Popoff Author Of Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century

From my list on about World War 2 with a touch of philosophy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm the author of four literary biographies and of one in progress. My current project is a concise interpretive biography of Ayn Rand, commissioned by Yale University Press, Jewish Lives. Among the best known and most divisive twentieth-century writers, the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged remains the subject of fascination. I began my career as a journalist in Moscow. Before turning to literary biography I lectured in Russian literature and history in Canada. My essays and reviews have appeared in The Wall Street JournalHuffington PostLiterary HubTablet MagazineNational Post, and other newspapers and outlets.

Alexandra's book list on about World War 2 with a touch of philosophy

Alexandra Popoff Why did Alexandra love this book?

Grigory Baklanov (born Grigory Friedman) belonged to the generation of soldiers that faced the full brunt of the German attack on the Soviet Union and of whom only 3% survived. Forever Nineteen (trans. Antonina Bouis) is a tribute to the men who remained forever young; as the author elucidates in the introduction to the novel’s American edition, “I wanted them to come alive when I wrote this book, I wanted people living now to care about them as friends, as family, as brothers.” Baklanov had attained international renown with his 1959 novel The Foothold [An Inch of Land], which appeared in 36 countries. His portrayal of the war is more personal than Grossman’s and has a different angle: rather than depicting famous battles, he is concerned with ordinary soldiers’ lives, which can be cut short at any moment. (Disclosure: Grigory Baklanov is my father.)

By Grigory Baklanov, Antonina W. Bouis (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Forever Nineteen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The story of a nineteen-year-old lieutenant in the Russian army tells of an "ordinary" man whose bravery and dedication helped save the Soviet Union from German rule in World War II, and describes the rugged and bitter battle he fought


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Book cover of From One Cell: A Journey into Life's Origins and the Future of Medicine

From One Cell by Ben Stanger,

Everybody knows that all animals—bats, bears, sharks, ponies, and people—start out as a single cell: the fertilized egg. But how does something no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence give rise to the remarkable complexity of each of these creatures?

FROM ONE CELL is a dive…

Book cover of The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939

Fabian Baumann Author Of Dynasty Divided: A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism

From my list on the long prehistory of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Why am I passionate about this?

It was through learning Russian in my Swiss high school that I first got interested in the history of Eastern Europe. When I became fascinated by the theory of nationalism during my university studies, my geographical focus shifted to Ukraine, a society whose aspiration to nationhood has been repeatedly been contested by the neighboring great powers. For my first book, I researched the history of a fascinating nationally bifurcated family whose members have left archival traces from Moscow to Liubljana and from Kyiv to Stanford. I hold a BA degree from the University of Geneva, an MPhil from the University of Oxford, and a PhD from the University of Basel.

Fabian's book list on the long prehistory of Russia’s war against Ukraine

Fabian Baumann Why did Fabian love this book?

Soviet rule completely changed the relationship between Russia as the imperial metropole and Ukraine as a peripheral territory in the empire.

It was through Terry Martin’s classic that I first understood the enormous political implications of the Soviets’ intricate nationality policy that invested the state’s various ethnic groups with their own national educational and administrative institutions, all the while depriving them of the right to political self-determination.

Martin’s analysis is as sharp as his prose is crisp and his detailed understanding of the Bolsheviks’ political reasoning remains impressive over twenty years after the study’s publication.

By Terry Martin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Affirmative Action Empire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Terry Martin looks at the nationalities policy of the early Soviet period and offers an insightful, detailed analysis of a problem that Soviet leaders grappled with throughout the twentieth century. As he points out, it was a problem that eventually helped to usher in the end of the USSR."
- Amanda Wood Aucoin, New Zealand Slavonic Journal

The Soviet Union was the first of Europe's multiethnic states to confront the rising tide of nationalism by systematically promoting the national consciousness of its ethnic minorities and establishing for them many of the institutional forms characteristic of the modern nation-state. In the…


Book cover of Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956
Book cover of Memoirs
Book cover of My World Line: An Informal Autobiography

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