Victor Sebestyen

The dramatic story of Budapest, a city on the fault line between East and West in the heart of Europe.Budapest has always been an important place. Almost at the centre of Europe, it is at the crossroads of geographical regions and of civilizations, at the intersection of ancient trade routes. Mountains that gradually slope into gentle hills converge on a great river, the Danube, and the regions of Buda and Pest sprang up on either side.Throughout history the centre of gravity in Budapest and among Hungarians has shifted between this division of East and West - culturally, politically, emotionally. Invaders have come and gone, empires have conquered, occupied for centuries or decades, and left a few footprints behind: the remains of a Roman bath house complete with wonderfully preserved mosaics stand next to a Soviet-style 'five- year-plan' apartment block. The city bears the scars of the rise and fall of multiple empires, two world wars, fascism, Nazi German occupation, Soviet Communis

The dramatic story of Budapest, a city on the fault line between East and West in the heart of Europe.Budapest has always been an important place. Almost at the centre of Europe, it is at the crossroads of geographical regions and of civilizations, at the intersection of ancient trade routes. Mountains that gradually slope into gentle hills converge on a great river, the Danube, and the regions of Buda and Pest sprang up on either side.Throughout history the centre of gravity in Budapest and among Hungarians has shifted between this division of East and West - culturally, politically, emotionally. Invaders have come and gone, empires have conquered, occupied for centuries or decades, and left a few footprints behind: the remains of a Roman bath house complete with wonderfully preserved mosaics stand next to a Soviet-style 'five-year-plan' apartment block. The city bears the scars of the rise and fall of multiple empires, two world wars, fascism, Nazi German occupation, Soviet Communism

Victor Sebestyen's riveting biography of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin—the first major biography in English in nearly two decades—is not only a political examination of one of the most important h

Shortlisted for the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography Victor Sebestyen's intimate biography is the first major work in English for nearly two decades on one of the most significant fig

A fascinating biography of the man who helped launch the Russian Revolution that uses the personal—including Lenin's key relationships with the women in his life—to shed light on the political.Since t

Victor Sebestyen's intimate biography is the first major work in English for nearly two decades on one of the most significant figures of the twentieth century. In Russia to this day Lenin inspires ad

From the author of Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution andRevolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire comes a powerful, revelatory book about the year that would signal the begi

In 1946, Victor Sebestyen creates a taut, panoramic narrative and takes us to meetings that changed the world: to Berlin in July 1945, when Truman tells Stalin we have successfully tested the bomb; to

With the end of the Second World War, a new world was born. The peace agreements that brought the conflict to an end implemented decisions that not only shaped the second half of the twentieth century

Revolution 1989 is the first in-depth, authoritative account of a few months that changed the world.At the start of 1989, six European nations were Soviet vassal states. By year's end, they had all de

From the author of Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution comes a revealing new account of the collapse of the Soviet Union’s European empire during months of largely peaceful revolut

Twelve Days is a riveting day-by-day account of the defining moment of the Cold War—the inspiring but brutally crushed Hungarian Uprising. Victor Sebestyen, a journalist whose own family fled Hungary,