Robert Service, professor at Oxford, is recognized as one of today’s leading Russia scholars. He has been widely praised for his objectivity, dispassionate analysis, and balanced insight. In A History of Modern Russia, Service set out to chronicle Russian history from the reign of Nicholas II to the present day.

The result is simply magisterial; Service has written an authoritative, balanced, and highly insightful survey of Russia’s turbulent 20th century. Although the book is not without flaws, it has clearly earned a place as one of the standard references of modern Russian history.

To grasp the strengths and limitations of the work, of course, the reader must first understand exactly what Service is aiming to do. This is not a comprehensive or encyclopedic disquisition on Russia, nor is it an attempt to place Russian history in the context of broader events. Rather, Service has set out to describe Russia’s 20th century evolution thematically and analytically. His book focuses on the dynamics and changes in Russian society and politics in modern times, and excludes much else.

At this endeavor, Service succeeds brilliantly. His version of narrative Russian history, centered around the “Soviet compound,” is penetrating and insightful; it is clear that he’s invested significant effort in developing a nuanced and non-ideological approach to Russian history. From a clearheaded assessment of the early Bolshevik revolutionaries to a complex look at Gorbachev and his political program, Service’s analysis is remarkably cogent and scrupulous.

The book is, however, marred by two visible flaws. First, the author’s coverage of the post-1996 period is disappointingly sparse. Service does a marvelous job at discussing the promises and challenges of Yeltsin’s first term, but gives short shrift to his second. The section on Putin is, similarly, curt and limited. This is perhaps explained by the fact that these sections were added in a second edition of the book, and thus not part of the original narrative.

Second, the author focuses mostly on his own analysis and does not include the views of other scholars. While this is not a fatal omission (the work is, after all, mainly a narrative history), it leaves the book incomplete. There has been so much impressive work done on Russia, and so many uniquely insightful interpretations of Russian history, that the author does readers a disservice by not incorporating them. It would have made the tome even longer, to be sure, but it would have also immeasurably enriched the author’s discussion of Russian society and politics.

Although the book itself focuses on Russian history, Service ends the work with a short essay on Russia today. Like any good historian, Service looks at the present-day with a “historian’s eye,” a broad and measured perspective, and aptly identifies the most pressing successes and also challenges of post-Soviet Russia.

Russia’s achievements after 1991 have been substantial. Parliamentary and presidential elections have been held; they have been rough-and-ready processes, but the fact that they took place at all has set precedents which it will be hard for Yeltin’s successors to repudiate. Competition among political parties has prevailed. Social groups have been permitted to express their aspirations and grievances. A market economy has been established. Already the predominance of the state military-industrial establishment has been weakened. Entrepreneurship has been fostered. The press has enjoyed much freedom, and even television journalism has not been entirely subject to central political authority. The agencies of the police invade the privacy of citizens to a lesser extent than at any time in recent Russian history, and there have been no wars across Russia’s international frontiers. Slowly and frailly, after much trevail, economic recovery has got under way.

Enormous power is concentrated in the Russian presidency and it has not been exercised with discretion. Democratic and legal procedures have been treated with contempt by politicians in Moscow and the provinces. Polemics have become ever more strident in public debates. Administration is conducted on an arbitrary basis. The judiciary has lost much of its short-lived semi-autonomy. Criminality is rife. Ordinary citizens have little opportunity to defend themselves against the threats of the rich and powerful. There is much poverty. Programmes of social and material welfare have been undermined and the economy has yet to surmount the effects of de-industrialization and environmental pollution. There is also much apathy and ignorance about current politics. Rates of participation are low. Russians agree more about what they dislike than about what they like. The price they are paying is that they have little impact on the government and other state agencies except at elections.

In concluding his afterward, Service’s long-view of history is welcomely apparent.

Russia in the twentieth century was full of surprises. A single country produced Lenin, Krushchev and Gorbachev; it also reared Shostakovich, Akhmatova, Kapitsa, Sakharov and Pavlov. Its ordinary people, from the piteous inmates of the Gulag to the proud Red Army conscript-victors over Hitler, became symbols of momentous episodes in the history of our times. Russia has passed through two world wars, civil war, violent economic transformation, dictatorship and terror. She became and then ceased to be a superpower. She was once a largely agrarian and illiterate empire and is now literate, industrial and bereft of her borderland dominions. ‘Russia’ has not stopped changing. It would be idle to assume that her record of astounding herself, her neighbours and the world has come to an end.

A History of Modern Russia is a fantastic narrative chronicle of Russia in the 20th century. The author explores Russian society and politics, the “Soviet compound,” with great balance and perceptiveness. He adds greatly to the modern understanding of the internal dynamics of the Soviet Union. And his book is a wonderful addition to the library of anyone looking to understand a country that will remain critically important well into the 21st century.