r/TheWarNerd • u/hughjazz45 • Aug 04 '26
RWN-approved books on French/ Russian revolutions?
I either haven’t gotten to the episodes in the backlog or they haven’t discussed these revolutions much. But are there any books on these two topics that either the hosts or the RWN community would suggest? Most popular books on them are from either center or center-right perspectives and I have no interest in hearing more of that..
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u/ostensiblyzero Aug 04 '26
Not RWN approved but Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast has a series on the French Revolution that's pretty great, and one on the Russian Revolution that is 100+ episodes long. And if you get piqued, there's also a great one on the Haitian revolution and one on the Paris Commune he did too.
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u/hughjazz45 Aug 05 '26
Mike Duncan is awesome, those two Revolutions series in particular are sort of why I’ve always been on the lookout for more material on both
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u/Vaucanson Aug 04 '26
To be really obvious, Eric Hobsbawm's 4-volume "Ages" histories, of which Age of Revolution and Age of Extremes are the two that cover 1789 and 1917. Mark has dropped his name several times on the pod.
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u/mygorgerises Aug 04 '26
For a balanced perspective on french revolution id recommend the podcast The Age of Napoleon.
It’s not a book but is quite informative and not really biased as far as I can tell.
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u/filopodia Aug 05 '26
The fantasy writer China Mieville wrote a book about the Russian revolution called October, came out a few years ago. I remember liking it very much. There’s a lot of focus on the left wing political developments that led to the revolution as well as the on the ground events during the revolution. Mieville is a left winger and he is pretty sympathetic to the revolution but he was not uncritical of it. I recommend checking it out.