Long listed for the The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2016. An epic story of courage, genius and terrible folly, this is the first history of how the Soviet Union's scientists became both the glory and the laughing stock of the intellectual world. Simon Ings weaves together what happened when a handful of impoverished and underemployed graduates, professors and entrepreneurs, collectors and charlatans, bound themselves to a failing government to create a world superpower. And he shows how Stalin's obsessions derailed a great experiment in 'rational government'.
- ISBN13 9780571290079
- Publish Date 6 October 2016 (first published 4 October 2016)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 22 December 2016
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Faber & Faber
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 528
- Language English