Want to know what books Stephen Lucas recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Stephen Lucas's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
This book, first published in Russian in 1958, is an authoritative account of the development of international law scholarship in Russia up to the 1917 Revolution. Newly translated with extensive corrections, annotations, and a bibliography, Grabar's study is an exhaustive guide to Russian literature on the law of nations that places those writings and their authors in the larger context of contemporary political, diplomatic, cultural, and economic developments of the period. It will be important reading for a wide range of lawyers, historians, and sovietologists. more This book, first published in Russian in 1958, is an authoritative account of the development of international law scholarship in Russia up to the 1917 Revolution. Newly translated with extensive corrections, annotations, and a bibliography, Grabar's study is an exhaustive guide to Russian literature on the law of nations that places those writings and their authors in the larger context of contemporary political, diplomatic, cultural, and economic developments of the period. It will be important reading for a wide range of lawyers, historians, and sovietologists. less 
Stephen LucasNow this is not really a book to be read from cover to cover. This is such serious scholarship that it’s almost a work of art, to be held, consulted, dipped into. It is 750 pages long and if books were possessions, to own rather than read, this would have to be in your top five. (Source)
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2
Stephen LucasTo my mind this is one of the best books written about Communist-era law. John Hazard was at Harvard Law School and in the 1930s he was selected to go and study Soviet law in Russia at the Moscow Juridical Institute. Later he returned to become an adviser to the US government before going into full-time teaching of Soviet law at Columbia University for over 30 years. I mean, nobody was out there... (Source)
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3
By the summer of 1929 Soviet industrialisation was well under way, but agriculture was in a profound crisis: in 1928 and 1929 grain to feed the towns was wrested from the peasants by force, and the twenty-five million individual peasant households lost the stimulus to extend or even to maintain their production. In the autumn of 1929 the Soviet Politburo, led by Stalin, launched its desperate effort to win the battle for agriculture by forcible collectivisation and by large-scale mechanisation. Simultaneously hundreds of thousands of kulaks (richer peasants) and recalcitrant peasants were... more By the summer of 1929 Soviet industrialisation was well under way, but agriculture was in a profound crisis: in 1928 and 1929 grain to feed the towns was wrested from the peasants by force, and the twenty-five million individual peasant households lost the stimulus to extend or even to maintain their production. In the autumn of 1929 the Soviet Politburo, led by Stalin, launched its desperate effort to win the battle for agriculture by forcible collectivisation and by large-scale mechanisation. Simultaneously hundreds of thousands of kulaks (richer peasants) and recalcitrant peasants were expelled from their villages. This book tells the story of these events, as momentous in their impact on Russian history at the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, and of the temporary retreat from collectivisation in the spring of 1930 in the face of peasant resistance. The crisis in the Communist Party which resulted from this upheaval, in the months preceding the XVI party congress in June 1930, is described in detail for the first time. less See more recommendations for this book...
4
In the tradition of John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World, this bestselling account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism. "A moving illumination . . . Remnick is the witness for us all." —Wall Street Journal. more In the tradition of John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World, this bestselling account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism. "A moving illumination . . . Remnick is the witness for us all." —Wall Street Journal. less Stephen LucasIf you’re not that interested in the intricacies of Soviet law but just want to know what it was like, this is what it was like. (Source)
Edward LucasTo understand the collapse of communism at first hand, the unrivalled account is the Pulitzer-prize winning Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. (Source)
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5
Soviet Workers and the Collapse of Perestroika is a comprehensive analysis of the role of labor policy in the development and ultimate collapse of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Filtzer argues that initially perestroika was designed to modernize the Soviet economy while keeping the existing political and property relations of society intact, requiring a thorough restructuring of the labor process within Soviet industry. He contends that the collapse of the USSR has brought the solution to this problem no nearer, and that post-Soviet capitalism is rooted in... more Soviet Workers and the Collapse of Perestroika is a comprehensive analysis of the role of labor policy in the development and ultimate collapse of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Filtzer argues that initially perestroika was designed to modernize the Soviet economy while keeping the existing political and property relations of society intact, requiring a thorough restructuring of the labor process within Soviet industry. He contends that the collapse of the USSR has brought the solution to this problem no nearer, and that post-Soviet capitalism is rooted in corruption and speculation and cannot ensure long-term economic growth. less Stephen LucasBasically, during the time of perestroika, there was a lot of discussion about whether or not perestroika had always been inevitable, whether the collapse of the USSR was inevitable from the beginning, and, also, what Gorbachev had been trying to achieve with perestroika. People looked at this from a legal point of view, and from a macro-economic point of view, or from a global political view. (Source)
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