Drawing on documentation only recently made available in the West, this extensively revised and updated edition reflects current views, in Russia and abroad, on the country's past as it approaches the new millennium. Beginning with the Slavs and their neighbors in the first millennium AD, this work gives incisive accounts of the Tatar conquest, the birth of the nation-state, the development of the Muscovite autocracy and serfdom, and the expansion of the Russian empire from Poland to the Pacific. Later chapters discuss economic growth and social unrest leading to the collapse of tsarism in war and revolution. In-depth analyses are offered of the policies and personalities of Soviet Russia's major figures, including a fresh look at the phenomenon of Stalinism, the USSR's role in the Second World War, and its acquisition of superpower status in the post-war world. New insights are provided on inter-ethnic relations and gender problems, and there are also sections on the arts, religion and cultural life in general.