About this book:

From a contested marshland on the Baltic to Peter the Great’s “window to Europe,” this sweeping history brings one of the world’s most dramatic cities vividly to life. Follow the rise of St. Petersburg from Swedish frontier to imperial capital, where palaces, fleets, factories, artists, workers, revolutionaries, and spies shaped the fate of an empire.

At the heart of the story lies Leningrad’s extraordinary twentieth century: the revolutions of 1917, Stalin’s purges, the terror of the siege, the Road of Life, postwar rebuilding, dissident culture, and the final collapse of the Soviet order. This is the story of a city that endured conquest, famine, bombardment, ideology, and reinvention.

For readers drawn to empire, war, revolution, architecture, culture, and human survival, *A History of Leningrad* offers a powerful journey through more than three centuries of history. It is the story of one city—and of the forces that shaped modern Russia and Europe.