27/02/2020
Lincoln, W. Bruce - Sunlight at Midnight
St. Petersburg and the rise of modern Russia
€ 32,50; $ 38.00
New York, 2000, first edition
Hardcover. Black cloth. Title in gold on spine. With dust jacket.
16 x 24 x 3,6 cm.
419 Pages
BRAND NEW
Ex libris on first free endpaper
With numerous black & white illustrations
Revolutionaries and laborers brush shoulders with tsar, builders, soldiers and statesman to illustrate the entire historical experience of the magnificent and mysterious city of
St. Petersburg, revealing the natural forces that shaped the modern history of the city and the nation.
For Russians, St. Petersburg has embodied power, heroism and fortitude.
It has encompassed all the things that the Russians are and that they hope to become.
Opulence and artistic brilliance blend with images of suffering on a monumental scale to make up the historic persona the late W. Bruce Lincoln’s lavish biography of this mysterious, complex city.
Climate and comfort were not what Tsar Peter the Great had in mind when he decided to build a new capital in the muddy marshes of the Neva River delta. Located 500 miles below the Arctic Circle, this area, with its foul weather, bad water and sodden soil, was so unattractive that only a handful of Finnish fisherman had ever settled there.
Yet to the Tsar the place he named Sankt Pieter Burkh had the makings of a paradise. His vision was soon borne out: though St. Petersburg was closer to London, Paris and Vienna than to Russian’s far-off eastern lands, it quickly became the political, cultural and economic center of an empire that stretched across more than a dozen time zones and over three continents.
In this book, revolutionaries and laborers brush shoulders with tsars and builders, soldiers and statesmen share pride of place with poets. For only the entire historical experience of this magnificent and mysterious city can reveal the wealth of human and natural forces that shaped the modern history of the city and the nation it represents.
William Bruce Lincoln (September 6, 1938 – April 9, 2000) was a scholar and author who wrote a number of widely-read books on Russian history. An expert noted for his narrative skills, he explained that he began "to write for a broader audience in the hope that my efforts to explain Russia's past may enable readers to better understand Russia's present."
In 1967 Lincoln joined the faculty of Northern Illinois University, where he taught Russian history until his retirement as Distinguished Research Professor at age 59. During his career at NIU he authored 12 books, several of which became featured book club adoptions and were translated into various foreign languages. He received many research grants and awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982. He published more than 50 articles and reviews, and some of his books written for general readers sold more than 100,000 copies. At the time of his death, he was writing a general history of Russia.
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