Frank Wcislo, “Tales of Imperial Russia: The Life and Times of Sergei Witte, 1849-1915” (Oxford UP, 2011)

Frank Wcislo, “Tales of Imperial Russia: The Life and Times of Sergei Witte, 1849-1915” (Oxford UP, 2011)

When it comes to Russia’s great reformers of the nineteenth century, Count Sergei Witte looms large. As a minster to both Alexander III and Nicholas II, Witte presided over some of the most important economic and political developments in the Old Regime’s last quarter century. As Finance Minister he oversaw the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. As a diplomat, he was Russia’s chief negotiator of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty that ended his country’s disastrous war with Japan. As Prime Minister, Witte authored the October Manifesto which crowned a series of sweeping reforms of Russia’s political system with a parliament, the State Duma. But as Frank Wcislo emphasizes in his biography, Tales of Imperial Russia: The Life and Times of Sergei Witte, 1849-1915 (Oxford University Press, 2011), Witte was also a great storyteller, as exemplified in his memoirs The Notes of Count Witte. Wcislo shows in this fascinating book how Witte’s stories reveal the times of the man as a man of the times. Witte was an archetypical New Russian torn by his affinity for the conservatism of the Russian elite and his recognition that those very values were fetters on his nation’s modernization. At the same time Witte’s stories reveal a man prone to masculine hero worship, gossip, vindictiveness, and embellishment of his own role in Russia’s high politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

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Kate Crane, "Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane?: A Memoir and an Investigation" (Hanover Square Press, 2026)

Kate Crane, "Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane?: A Memoir and an Investigation" (Hanover Square Press, 2026)

Kate Crane's new memoir, Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane?: A Memoir and an Investigation" (Hanover Square Press, 2026) starts when Crane was in eighth grade and her father, a truck mechanic in an indu...

15 Apr 43min

Elizabeth Rosner, "Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening" (Catapult, 2025)

Elizabeth Rosner, "Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening" (Catapult, 2025)

This illuminating book Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening (Catapult, 2025) weaves personal stories of a multilingual upbringing with recent scientific breakthroughs in interspe...

14 Apr 1h 3min

Rory Naismith, "Offa: King of the Mercians" (Yale UP, 2026)

Rory Naismith, "Offa: King of the Mercians" (Yale UP, 2026)

In Offa: King of the Mercians (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Rory Naismith presents an authoritative biography of Offa of Mercia, revealing his importance as the king who stood at the turning point of Ang...

14 Apr 51min

David Potter, "Master of Rome: A Life of Julius Caesar" (Oxford UP, 2025)

David Potter, "Master of Rome: A Life of Julius Caesar" (Oxford UP, 2025)

By any measure, Julius Caesar is one of the most significant and famous figures in Roman history. Self-identified as a "popular" politician, he advocated for effective government to better the lives o...

11 Apr 50min

Ed Simon, "Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections on the Great Unraveling" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Ed Simon, "Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections on the Great Unraveling" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Rising authoritarianism. Covid. Inflation. Wealth disparity. War. Climate change. While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainly seems like our current anxieties aren't ill place...

9 Apr 1h 6min

Katharine K. Wilkinson, "Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home" (Amber Lotus Publishing, 2026)

Katharine K. Wilkinson, "Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home" (Amber Lotus Publishing, 2026)

When maps come up short and the path ahead is uncertain, how do we find our way? Visionary climate leader Katharine K. Wilkinson offers a compassionate and empowering guide to navigating from ache to ...

8 Apr 33min

Eleanor Houghton, "Charlotte Brontë's Life in Clothes" (Bloomsbury 2026)

Eleanor Houghton, "Charlotte Brontë's Life in Clothes" (Bloomsbury 2026)

Eleanor Houghton, in conversation with Duncan McCargo and Alexis Wolf Meet the real, thinking, feeling woman that was Charlotte Brontë, as told in this biography by the surviving witnesses to her li...

6 Apr 29min

Scott M. Kenworthy, "The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Scott M. Kenworthy, "The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia" (Oxford UP, 2026)

On October 28, 1917, just days after the Bolsheviks seized power, the great Council of the Russian Orthodox Church voted to restore the patriarchate, which had been abolished by Peter the Great two ce...

6 Apr 1h 23min

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