Varieties of Fear

About the Book

This is an absorbing memoir by a major historian of the Soviet Union, which relates a harrowing youth and coming of age. It is at once moving and matter of fact. It accomplishes the goals of good autobiographical writing: the illumination of some larger truth by focusing on the smaller and more personal realm of life.

About the Author

Peter Kenez is professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz. After leaving his native Hungary in 1956, he studied at Princeton and Harvard. He is the author of several books on Soviet history.