History: Lenin's Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives, Poland's Secret War, Asia Relations, Reform After Stalin, Holocaust Recovery

In the Polish Secret War: Memoir of a World War II Freedom Fighter (BOOK): by Marian S. Mazgaj

Born in the Polish village of Gaj in 1923, Marian Mazgaj was a teenager when Germany invaded his country and launched Poland into the combat of World War II. Too young to join the Polish army, within a few years he became a member of the Sandomierz Flying Commando Unit, a unit which merged with the Jedrus Polish underground group.
This memoir provides a vivid record of Mazgaj's career in the military. The Sandomierz Flying Commando Unit and the Jedrus underground were actively engaged in fighting the Nazi forces in Poland during World War II, and the author provides a first-hand account of the groups' roles in attacking and disarming German military units; destroying the enemy's grain warehouses and receiving air drops of weapons, ammunition, and explosives from the Allies. He also describes the incorporation of his partisan group into the Home Army, whereby he and his comrades became the Fourth Company in the Second Regiment of the Second Division, gaining strength and destroying many more German units.

International Relations of Asia (BOOK): edited by David Shambaugh and Michael Yahuda

Want to know where the Asia region is headed? This comprehensive and well-written volume provides a clear picture of its political, economic, and social dynamics by the top scholars in the field. It is bound to become the most widely used textbook for Asian international relations courses. –Susan Shirk, University of California, San Diego, and former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs

Khrushchev's Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime, and the Fate of Reform After Stalin (BOOK): by Miriam Dobson

Between Stalin's death in 1953 and 1960, the government of the Soviet Union released hundreds of thousands of prisoners from the Gulag as part of a wide-ranging effort to reverse the worst excesses and abuses of the previous two decades and revive the spirit of the revolution. This exodus included not only victims of past purges but also those sentenced for criminal offenses. In Khrushchev's Cold Summer Miriam Dobson explores the impact of these returnees on communities and, more broadly, Soviet attempts to come to terms with the traumatic legacies of Stalin's terror.

Le-natseah et Hitler (in English): The Holocaust is over we must rise from its ashes (BOOK): by Avraham Burg

“An Israeli-born son of Holocaust survivors, Burg addresses a heartfelt plea to his countrymen: remember the past, but do not be its slaves; pathology is neither patriotism nor statescraft. A compelling and eloquent cri de coeur from a veteran of Israel's wars and politics.” -- Howard M. Sachar, bestselling author of A History of the Jews in the Modern World and A History of Israel

"Burg takes a blunt, loving, painful and desperately important look at the state of the Jewish soul today. Anyone who cares about the future of the Middle East and the fate of victimized peoples needs to read this book and think hard." -- J.J. Goldberg, author of Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment and Editorial Director of The Forward

“Short of being Prime Minister, Burg could not be higher in the Zionist establishment.” David Remnick, The New Yorker

Lenin's Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives (BOOK): by Paul R. Gregory

The opening of the once-secret Soviet state and party archives in the early 1990s proved to be an event of exceptional significance. When Western scholars broke down the official wall of secrecy that had stood for decades, they gained access to intriguing new knowledge they had previously only had been able to speculate about. In this fascinating volume, Paul Gregory takes us behind scenes and into the archives to illuminate the dark inner workings of the Soviet Union.

He reveals, for example, the bizarre story of the state-sponsored scientific study of Lenin's brain. Originally conceived to "prove" Lenin's genius, the plan was never revealed to the public--for to do so was more than the security-conscious Soviet leadership could have borne. Gregory also exposes the harsh features of Stalin's criminal justice system--in which the theft of state and collective property was punished far more severely than the theft of private property. Indeed, the theft of small amounts of grain was punishable by ten years in the Gulag or a death sentence. The author also illuminates the true story behind the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, telling how the ill-conceived incursion was ordered by a Politburo of aging and ill leaders who would not be around to deal with the long-term consequences of their decision.

In addition, the book examines such topics as Stalin's Great Terror, the day-to-day life of Gulag guards, Lenin's repression of "noncommunist" physicians and his purge of intellectuals, the 1940 Soviet execution of 20,000 Poles, and other previously well-concealed tales.

Paul Gregory, a Hoover Institution research fellow, holds an endowed professorship in the Department of Economics at the University of Houston, Texas, and is a research professor at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin.