The Year I Was Peter the Great - Marvin Kalb

The fifteenth book from acclaimed journalist Marvin Kalb, entitled The Year I Was Peter the Great (Brookings, $24.99), is a memoir focused on one tumultuous year, 1956. Kalb was then a twenty-six-year-old Russian-speaking graduate student assisting the American ambassador as a translator at the U.S embassy in Moscow. As Khrushchev’s shocking, year-long campaign of de-Stalinization unfolded, Kalb was there as an eyewitness, meeting Russians of all types, assessing their attitudes and opinions, and watching them size up their American visitor too. This is a fascinating and highly entertaining story about a momentous year in Russian history—one especially relevant in the era of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.