The best introductory text to 1917 is Sheila Fitzpatrick's The Russian Revolution. It is a slim and accessible volume that is one of the basic texts for the Russian Revolution. Alexander Rabinowitch's trilogy on 1917 (Prelude to Revolution, The Bolsheviks Come To Power, and The Bolsheviks in Power) are also excellent examinations of the events of that year. Rabinowitch pioneered a history from below approach to 1917 that was quite controversial when he first hit the scene (and he was attacked both on the right and left), but has become a somewhat orthodox approach to 1917. While both Fitzpatrick and Rabinowitch mostly cover those who took to the streets in 1917, Dominic Lieven's recent book The End of Tsarist Russia (also known as Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia in the UK) focuses on elite and governmental responses to the decline of Romanov power and the stresses of war. The relevant sections on the twentieth century Romanovs in both Geoffrey Hosking's Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1972 and Richard Wortmann's Scenarios of Power present a good account of the failures and shortcomings of the Romanovs as they entered into modernity. The two books are also readable and important introductions into the overall trajectory of autocracy.

Of course, 1917 is inseparable from the revolutionaries of the period. Lenin is subject to both hagiography and hatchet-jobs, with the further complication that his theory often overshadows his actions. James White's Lenin: The Practice and Theory of Revolution is a slim and valuable examination of how Lenin thought to squeeze his theory into objective realities. Lenin: Conspirator in Exile by Helen Rappaport provides a window into the milieu of revolutionaries in exile and the social networks that sustained Lenin. Stephen Kotkin's Stalin: The Paradoxes of Power is a door-stopper of a book and the first part of trilogy and Kotkin's sections prior to 1917 bring this world to life. Elizabeth White's The Socialist Alternative to Bolshevik Russia: The Socialist Revolutionary Party, 1921–1939 examines one of the Bolsheviks' chief rivalries in 1917.

1917 did not spring from the ether. The Revolution of 1905 nearly brought down the government and shook the foundations of the Romanov state. Abraham Ascher's The Revolution of 1905: A Short History is a distillation of a much larger two-volume treatment of this revolution. Ascher's biography of Tsardom's last great minister, Stolypin, is another window into the 1905 dress rehearsal and its aftermath. The First World War was also vital to understand the emergence of the Bolsheviks. David Stone's The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 is one of the more recent examinations of the Eastern front and the spiraling violence. Both Eric Lohr's Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I and Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921 by Peter Holquist approach the war from the perspective of escalating violence against the civilian population which later spilled over into the Civil War and imparted a further violent character to it.

ummm...wow....couldn't have asked for a better answer!!! thanks a million.

R.