A Nasty Little War, Anna Reid
A Nasty Little War, Anna Reid
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A Nasty Little War
The Western Intervention into the Russian Civil War

Author: Anna Reid

Narrator: Anna Reid

Unabridged: 13 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 02/06/2024

Synopsis

The first comprehensive history of the failed Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, a decisive turning point in the relationship between Russia and the West

Overlapping with and overshadowed by the First World War, the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War was one of the most ambitious military ventures of the twentieth century. Launched in the summer of 1918, it drew in 180,000 troops from fifteen different countries in theaters ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic, and from Poland to the Pacific. Though little remembered today, its consequences stoked global political turmoil for decades to come. 
  
In A Nasty Little War, top Russia historian Anna Reid offers a sweeping and deeply researched account of the conflict. Initially launched to prevent Germany from exploiting the power vacuum in Eastern Europe left by the Russian Revolution, the Intervention morphed into a bid to destroy the Bolsheviks on the battlefield. But Allied armaments, supplies, and loans could not prevent Russia’s anti-Bolshevik armies from collapsing, and the Allies were forced to retreat in defeat. The humiliation sapped British imperial swagger, chastened American idealism, and stoked militarism and nationalism in France and Germany. Combining immersive storytelling with deep research, A Nasty Little War reveals how the Allied Intervention reshaped the West’s relationship with Russia.

About Anna Reid

Anna Reid was Kiev correspondent for the Economist and the Daily Telegraph from 1993-5, and has since covered the country for Newsweek and the Spectator. She is the author of The Shaman's Coat: a Native History of Siberia, and Leningrad: Tragedy of a City under Siege, 1941-44, which was published in ten languages and shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize. From 1992-6 she ran the foreign affairs program at the London-based think-tank Policy Exchange.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Liam on December 20, 2024

This book has some immensely revelatory elements but, and I hate to add this qualification, it is unsatisfactory because it isn't really just about Western Intervention in Russia, such a study would have to concentrate on the underlying ideological reasons, if any, for getting involved. It is, sort......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on December 31, 2024

Anna Reid's A Nasty Little War revisits the doomed Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, where various foreign powers (Britain, France, the US, Japan and many other states) ill-advisedly sent troops and political support to the White Armies resisting the Bolshevik takeover of Russia. Reid sh......more

Goodreads review by Olaf on May 14, 2024

A fine piece of skilled and entertaining writing about an almost forgotten and overlooked part of European History. The Western meddling in post revolutionary Russia is a subject that interested me from the moment I read about it. And that's not easy since this is an part of history that's mostly sw......more

Goodreads review by Rodrigo on December 11, 2023

In the book’s introduction, Anne Reid recounts the story of the meeting between Thatcher and Gorbachev, with the former claiming that Britain and the Soviet Union had never been in a war. She needed to be corrected, as, in fact, both countries had been at war during the period of Intervention in the......more

Goodreads review by Peter on January 03, 2025

A Nasty Little War, Anna Reid This is a very enjoyable book that looks at a very disreputable element of our history. It concentrates on the Allied side of intervention, mostly on the British, with the Americans and the French taking lesser roles and the various other nations taking up even smaller s......more

Quotes

“Brilliantly depicts the disastrous failure of our intervention in the ‘Russian’ civil war. The atmosphere, the characters, the absurdity are all there.”
 —Antony Beevor, New York Times–bestselling author of Stalingrad

“In witty, elegant prose, Reid uncovers the true story of the West’s failed and forgotten attempt to reverse the Bolshevik revolution. Excellent.”
 —Anne Applebaum, New York Times–bestselling author of Twilight of Democracy

“A compelling and meticulously researched account. Through its pages strut arrogant warlords, tsarist generals, Bolshevik revolutionaries and British and American military commanders; at stake, the future fate of Russia. With Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine—and the West’s determination to see him defeated—A Nasty Little War is chillingly topical.”
 —Giles Milton, author of Checkmate in Berlin

“Combining exemplary research, arresting anecdotes and elegant prose, Anna Reid’s history of the Allied attempt to strangle the Bolshevik revolution in its cradle is that rare beast—an academically impeccable history book that is a pleasure to read.”
 —Roger Moorhouse, author of Poland 1939

“A vivid and remarkably timely account of a Western intervention that we have largely forgotten, but the Kremlin has brooded on for more than a century.”
 —Martin Sixsmith, New York Times–bestselling author of Philomena

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