Rating: 
Summary: Inexorable flow of events
Review: This is a momentous work - quite unlike FIRST CIRCLE or the GULAG ARCHIPELAGO. Solzhenitsyn cannot himself from centering on people. Despite the epic events depicted, the start of WW1, the Battle of Tannenburg, the meeting of cultures, in the end this is a book of individuals, great and small.The word pictures he has created of the rolling plains of battle, the lumbering armies, life in the military, are some of the greatest ever painted. One is transported back to that date when backward, religiously zealous, serf-like Russia meets the modern age. The story of the first vision of the industrial West by the illiterate Russian soldier - and the impact it makes on them - was breathtaking. The story switches from one vista to another, battlefield to palace, and finally from the Romanovs to Lenin as the march of history continues steadily and inexorably onward. Even knowing the awful outcome does not decrease the pleasure of the story. At the end, you have come only so far and are ready for the next in the series, NOVEMBER 1916. I like the method in which he has chosen to write history - the selection of specific periods of time which he considered to have had the greatest impact on the modern Soviet state.
Rating: 
Summary: tedious
Review: This is without a doubt one of the dullest books I have ever read. I'm sure it's very worthy and all that, but there was nothing in this book to draw you in, to enthrall you, to make you want to keep reading. It's just a list of words. It was a massive effort to finish this book. Other people obviously enjoyed it, but it's delights escaped me completely.
Rating: 
Summary: Heartbreaking account of the end of Imperial Russia
Review: Though the translation suffers a little, this novel of the last golden days of Imperial Russia and the frenzied destruction of the "old order" by the Bolsheviks remains one of my favorites. Although Solzhenitsyn wasn't born until 1918, it's as if he were strolling alongside Gorky and Tomchak and the other personalities that feature into his tale during that awful time.
Rating:
Summary: Detailed account.
Review: To get the most out of this book, you have to be prepared for the very detailed account of the battles in East Prussia during August 1914. If you're not into military history, I should imagine that the book will be a tedious read. As it is, I don't mind military history, and so found this an interesting experience, illuminating what has become almost the forgotten part of World War One. Solzhenitsyn treats the Russian armies as a microcosm of the Tsarist state - their failures are a reflection of the decay of pre-revolutionary Russian society. The details of the experiences of the troops under bombardment, and their shock at the orderly condition of the German towns and farms (almost as if the Russians had landed on another planet) are particularly interesting. I'd put "War and Peace" and Zola's "The Debacle" above "August 1914", but nonetheless, it does not pale a great deal in comparison. What would be most interesting to think about (particularly bearing in mind Solzhenitsyn's earlier works) is how it was that only 20 years later Communist Russia managed to defeat a far more serious German threat.
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