Really good in-depth book on a interesting topic that everyone seems to have grasp of but not a clue really but this guy does just that sorts the truth out of the fiction

Have you ever asked yourself, "Geez, what is Russia's deal?" Well, Mark Galeotti is here to explain! His newest book, Forged in War, is a (relatively) short look at the life of what we call Russia today but was called a lot of things during its lifetime. The main focus is on the numerous wars fought by the Russian people to create, consolidate, and defend the motherland. Along the way, Galeotti helpfully points out specific events which Putin uses to try and fool anyone within hearing distance that there is historical precedence for the various countries he tramples over.

Galeotti himself points out a true detailing of all of these wars would fill numerous volumes. Each chapter ends with a supplemental reading list in case you want to know more about how, for example, Ivan the Terrible was actually a great state builder until he become... well, terrible. This does mean the narrative will have some overlapping timelines and I am sure some generous generalizing. What I find makes Galeotti so readable under these circumstances is his ability to focus on a character and tell their story which applies to the general time period. A listing of wars and who won them would be very dull. Explaining how Peter the Great built his military apparatus and used it is much more entertaining. It also helps that Galeotti's dry wit is still in full force. I highly recommend it.

(This book was provided as an advance reader copy by Netgalley and Osprey Publishing.)

I found this book to be a difficult one to review. The conceit - the history of Russia told via the history of individual battles - is a good one, and up until the nineteenth century it works really well. Of necessity Galeotti gives us a potted history of what else is going on in Russia (or Rus' or Muscovy) at the time as context for the battle he's discussing, but the narrative is smooth and straightforward and he does an excellent job at linking the battles and history back and forth, so he's referencing twentieth-century or twenty-first-century events while explaining something that happened in the middle ages, which again lends context to what we're reading.

Then we hit the nineteenth century and it basically becomes a giant mess. In a larger sense I think the issue is the globalization of war at this point; you can no longer briefly explain what's going on in the vicinity of Russia without first explaining, e.g., what the heck Napoleon is doing in France. Or perhaps you could - I'm not a historian, I've never tried to distill the Napoleonic Wars down to a couple pages, maybe it's possible? - but Galeotti doesn't. Where, for example, we have a couple sentences at most explaining what's going on in the Mongol Empire outside of their invasion of Russia, now we have epic, sweeping, global (or at least European-wide) battles and wars, and consequently a whole host of other things that require explanation.

We're also suddenly getting much more than a few brief sentences on Russian history outside of this particular battle. The battles seem to be an afterthought as we approach the twentieth century in favor of a brief history of Russia in total, and it feels very different as a narrative. It feels rushed and incomplete; there's just too much information there and Galeotti is rushing through it to get it all on page. I get it, the history of Russia was complicated, but it's really too complicated to be covered with this framing. It feels both overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time, because he doesn't have enough space to include everything he would need to in order to make it all make sense.

When we hit the twenty-first century I found it became much more readable again; Galeotti's no longer trying to cram in the substance of something he, and others, wrote many, many books about, and instead is just giving the reader an explanation of what the heck is going on inside Russia militarily in the twenty-first century, based in large part on his own research and interviews. This is the kind of contemporary narrative that's informative and engrossing - Galeotti's an excellent writer overall, and has the background to actually pull together a narrative that makes sense.

The setup of the book makes it easy to dip in and out of; as a result, I'd say dip into the beginning chapters and the last few, and just skip the nineteenth and twentieth centuries unless you're curious. Otherwise, check his bibliographies (which are excellent) and pick up a few of those books to learn more about those periods.

It's not an easy read, and I haven't finished it yet. (The Russians have just defeated the Swedes at the battle of Poltava, two or three hundred years ago, where the Russians just the other day killed a bunch of Ukrainian civilians -- forged in war indeed!) It's a valuable read nevertheless, and made a bit easier by the author's occasional humor and his policy of beginning each chapter with a list of significant dates and ending it with a brief reading list.

Unfortunately while this seemed like something I would be interested in, this book just wasn't for me, and I couldn't finish it. It read like a series of events without much connection between them or context of other historical details not directly related to warfare (which would have helped to anchor all these conquests and territories into a cohesive history instead of just a timeline). I found it hard to follow, dry, and boring. But the author clearly put in a lot of time researching.

It’s a shame to begin a review with a cliché, but it is difficult to offer a summary without describing Mark Galeotti’s latest offering on the Russian experience as magesterial. Yes, the initial chapters could mistakenly be dismissed as a tedious series of invasions from all directions by tribes and bands whose names are, for most of us, lost in distant history. But that would be to miss the point, since the very essence of this book, is an attempt to convey to the reader the influence this history of invasion and conquest (although arguably not unique to Russia) has had on how Russia sees itself in the world. As the author brings the reader into periods of history, particularly from the dawn of the nineteenth century that are perhaps more familiar to most readers the detail is enhanced, as is an exploration of the way history has influenced decision making and the formulation of a broad strategy for Russia. Many readers interested in the book’s subject matter will have encountered the author’s previous works on Putin’s wars. It is therefore quite proper that, although Putin’s more recent adventures in Georgia, Chechnya and Ukraine are given due coverage, they are not the principal focus of a book that has a longer historical perspective.
Essential reading for anyone seeking to better understand Putin’s Russia.