To the Edge of the World: The Story of the Trans-Siberian Railway

Description

Atlantic Books, 2013It is the world's longest railway line. But it is so much more than that, too. The Trans-Siberian stretches nearly 6,000 miles between Moscow and Vladivostok on the Pacific Coast and was the most ambitious railway project in the nineteenth century. A journey on the railway evokes a romantic roam through the Russian steppes, but also reminds travellers of the vastness of our world and hints at the hardships that were endured in its construction. The book describes the reasons for the railway's construction and the wranglings that preceded the building of this immense project, the building of the railway, its effects on geo-politics particularly the war with Japan and later developments. He records the sufferings and deaths of many thousands of untold exiles and prisoners used as forced labour and the later recruitment of volunteers to complete the BAM railway to the north, suggesting convincingly that these projects led to 1917 revolution that overthrew the Tsarist regime and to the eventual collapse of the Communist system respectively. That he manages to condense such a huge subject into a modestly-sized book that is both authoritative, readable, entertaining and thought-provoking is quite remarkable.