PRAISE FOR RED MUTINY
"[An]
elegiac and emotionally involving story...beautifully
researched...[A] high-seas drama as gripping as a novel
by C.S. Forester or Patrick O'Brian....Bascomb has
written a remarkable book about an episode that, once
historians get it right, will rank next to Spartacus'
uprising against Rome and Washington rallying his
troops at Valley Forge."
—Los
Angeles Times
"I can pay this superb book no greater compliment than
to admit that, despite knowing the outcome, I was
genuinely gripped as the dramatic events unfolded. With
this brilliant reassessment, Bascomb has restored the
extraordinary story of the Potemkin to its rightful
place in Russia's history."
—Sunday
Telegraph Book Review
"Bascomb has
a knack for writing interesting books about events
you're not sure you're all that interested in. Now he
turns to the mutiny aboard the battleship
Potemkin...His book all but throbs with Russia: vodka,
fiery rhetoric, aristocratic snobbiness, peasant
resignation, Russian glory, Russian shame and all the
rest of the stuff that made Dr. Zhivago such a good
movie."
—St.
Louis Post Dispatch
"Bascomb presents the gripping events of June 1905 with
sharply focused immediacy and a flair for high drama...
In his capable hands, this powerful morality play
vividly reminds us never to underestimate a handful of
people willing to die for an idea... Bascomb recounts
the unfolding events in a believable and authoritative
voice... History at its best: readable, dramatic, and
propelled by unforgettable principals."
—Kirkus,
starred
review
"'You
might at any moment be carried off to warfare...' So
said a revolutionary seeking recruits to a mutineer's
cause in June 1905. Inhaling RED MUTINY, I was indeed
carried off to war -- at every moment. Neal Bascomb has
reached back through 100 years of fog and propaganda to
find truth, history and an old-fashioned great read."
—Sherry
Sontag, Blind
Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine
Espionage
"Neal
Bascomb's Red Munity is a riveting, impeccably
researched and completely riveting account of the first
act of the first Russian Revolution of 1905 -- a
cliff-hanging tale of rebellion and dissent that became
symbolic and emblematic of the events that ultimately
led to the overthrow of the Russian monarchy in 1917.
Dramatically and vividly told, it is must reading for
anyone interested not only in Russian history, but in
all the momentous upheavals of the 20th century."
—Peter
Kurth,
Anastasia and Tsar: The Lost World of
Nicholas and
Alexandra
"As gripping
as a good novel. This is an outstandingly good book."
—Times
of London
(paperback review)
—Seattle Times
"After a tautly vivid rendering of the mutiny, Bascomb writes of the 11 days that follow. [His] account is both thrilling and judicious. With a wealth of detail, he tells of the Potemkin anchoring in Odessa, its guns threatening the authorities who were struggling to put down riots and demonstrations. The military commander set a cordon around the port; fires broke out, and when the crowds sought to flee they were massacred on the high steps leading into town...The high point in a book of many excellences."
—Boston Globe
"Novelistically omniscient and vivid, featuring a busy chorus of disaffected sailors, tyrannical officers, idealistic revolutionaries, and reactionary Romanovs: a grand narrative in search of a modern Eisenstein."
—Times of London (hardcover review)
"A rollicking good yarn, an energetic, colorful account of 11 days that shook the world."
—Simon Sebag Montefiore, Daily Telegraph
"Bascomb has done naval history a great service by delving into hitherto unplumbed resources...A real page-turner...The author has woven a rich tapestry through the lives and actions of sailors pressed beyond the bounds of humanity."
—Naval History (U.S. Naval Institute)
"This is a rich, complex book in the tradition of the grand tale told as legend. Bascomb's range is huge, his eye omnipotent, his research impeccable. Bascomb is able through the alchemy of his art to transform history into a living, breathing story. Red Mutiny reads as if these fantastic events were happening for the very first time, with each turn of the page."
—Doug Stanton, In Harm's Way
"Red Mutiny is the compelling story of the arrival of 'people power' on the world scene, an event that transformed the modern world. In Neal Bascomb's fine telling, the drama is high, the stakes are higher, and the rewards to the reader are highest of all."
—James Carroll, House of War