The Baron's Cloak: A History of the Russian Empire in War and Revolution
"The Baron's Cloakis the best book I've read in a very long time. It is brilliantly conceived and crafted. Willard Sunderland's research and erudition are unrivaled, and his writing is fast-paced, accessible, and often poetic. Sunderland does a terrific job of reimagining the Russian empire, territory, and power; this book will set the standard for a long time to come."—Robert Crews, Stanford University, author ofFor Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia"Willard Sunderland'sThe Baron’s Cloakis a wonderful and an important book. Beautifully written, with an abundance of photographs and maps, it tells one man’s life story as a prism as way to explore the Russian empire at its twilight. Baron Roman Fedorovich Ungern-Sternberg was both a fascinating and appalling individual. (Imagine a character from a Dostoevsky novel transposed to the borderlands at the twilight of empire, in conditions war, revolution, ruin, and chaos.) Sunderland uses Ungern-Sternberg's life to illustrate the far-flung empire that made the life possible. His book unfolds almost cinematically across Eurasia: Graz, Austria; the Baltic Provinces; St. Petersburg; Manchuria; the Russian Far East; the killing fields of the First World War in Prussia, Galicia, Persia; climaxing with Ungern-Sternberg’s doomed campaigns in Mongolia and Siberia. Sunderland is the first to understand Ungern-Sternberg as a type, an imperial cosmopolitan. His book is compelling reading not only for Russian and Soviet historians but also for any reader who seeks to understand the full scope of the Great War’s imperial apocalypse."—Peter Holquist, University of Pennsylvania, author ofMaking War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921