| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

Stephen Lovell. The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras. (Studies in Russia and East Europe.) New York: St. Martin's, in association with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. 2000. Pp. viii, 215. $65.00.

This book is an addition to the emerging books on the publishing and reading culture in Russia, both imperial and Soviet. The book also adds new information on the last years of the Soviet regime and Boris Yeltsin's era. The narrative follows expected outlines. It provides a brief overview of the publishing and reading culture in the last years of imperial Russia, the turbulent era of revolutions, and the time of civil war. It provides more details on the New Economic Program (NEP) period. Stephen Lovell rightfully states that NEP Russia was characterized by a competition of state publishers and private publishers. Upon the end of the NEP, private publishers ceased to exist. The next part of the book deals with late Stalinism, Nikita Khrushchev's period and Leonid Brezhnev's "stagnation." Several important details are provided here that indicate the importance of books in the overall culture of Brezhnev's time. 1

Lovell points to the defitsit (i.e. the existence of hard-to-obtain books, ownership of which was quite prestigious). One of the most detailed and most useful chapters deals with the late Soviet and early post-Soviet eras. Indeed, no one has tackled the subject of book publishing and reading culture for this period of recent Russian history. Here the author demonstrates how the old system of publishing declined and a new reading culture emerged. . . .

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