A Kingdom and a Village: A One-Thousand-Year History of Moscow
“A sweeping history of Moscow that combines taut storytelling with penetrating analysis […] Simon Morrison brings to life the contradictory legacies of power, violence and creativity that have shaped the city as a nexus of empire. A timely and indispensable guide for anyone wanting to understand Moscow.”
― Rebecca Reich, Professor of Russian Literature and Culture, University of Cambridge
"… [this book] offers the best hope of answering the quintessential Russian question, posed by Tolstoy: do extraordinary individuals actually shape the course of history, or are they merely swept along by it? The erudition of A Kingdom and a Village, Simon Morrison’s book on a thousand years of Moscow’s history is matched only by its readability."
― Financial Times
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A Kingdom and a Village: A One-Thousand-Year History of Moscow
The city of Moscow stands at the center of a nation comprising eleven percent of the globe’s landmass, 11 time zones, and nearly 150 million people, some 13 million of whom live in the capital. In A Kingdom and a Village,acclaimed historian Simon Morrison offers a vividly rendered history of Russia’s heart and soul, tracing its transformation from a “big village”—the demeaning nickname the St. Peterburg nobility gave to its provincial neighbor—into a spectacular metropolis of vast geopolitical import.
That arc is the stuff of dramatic, violent, stranger-than-fiction historical narrative: the last century alone has featured invasions and costly battles, the destruction (and reconstruction) of sacred cultural and religious landmarks, and the collapse of the Soviet republic—not to mention the rise of an authoritarian leader who is a keen student of Russian history. Morrison reaches back further still, to the founding of the place we now know as Moscow as a fortress on a river nearly a millennium ago. In the centuries that followed, any number of external forces—from Tatar Mongols and Swedes to Napoleon and Hitler—set their sights on Moscow, reinforcing its self-conception as both a glittering prize and a site of perpetual defense and resurrection.
Watch the exclusive PBS NewsHour interview with Simon Morrison
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Tchaikovsky's Empire: A New Life of Russia's Greatest Composer
“A thrilling new biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky—composer of some of the world’s most popular orchestral and theatrical music.”
“A lively, argumentative and thoughtful reflection on one of the 19th century’s most important musical figures.”
—Michael O’Donnell, Wall Street Journa
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Tchaikovsky's Empire: A New Life of Russia's Greatest Composer
London: Yale University Press, 2024
Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire’s worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage.
In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky’s complex world. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan, decentred.
Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovsky’s music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus.Tchaikovsky’s Empireunsettles everything we thought we knew—and gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russia’s most popular composer.
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"A glimpse of the woman behind the chiffon and provides us with insights into our generation's most iconic femaile singer"
- Walter Egan, Music Producer, Songwriter, artist
A stunning musical biography of Stevie Nicks that paints a portrait of an artist, not a caricature of a superstar.
Reflective and expansive, Mirror in the Sky situates Stevie Nicks as one of the finest songwriters of the twentieth century.
This biography from distinguished music historian Simon Morrison examines Nicks as a singer and songwriter before and beyond her career with Fleetwood Mac, from the Arizona landscape of her childhood to the strobe-lit Night of 1000 Stevies celebrations.
The book uniquely:
- Analyzes Nicks's craft—the grain of her voice, the poetry of her lyrics, the melodic and harmonic syntax of her songs.
- Identifies the American folk and country influences on her musical imagination that place her within a distinctly American tradition of women songwriters.
- Draws from oral histories and surprising archival discoveries to connect Nicks's story to those of California's above- and underground music industries, innovations in recording technology, and gendered restrictions.
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