The topics of Tannenberg, Stolypin's reforms, and Nicholas II's characters are unfamiliar to American readers.

August 1914 is a long, detailed work that a contemporary, non-Russian audience will find slow paced and filled by strange names, places, and issues.

Many appealing characters are introduced, but their destiny is postponed until a later "knot." The novel will appeal most to readers who are students of history, especially of twentieth-century military and political history.

Solzhenitsyn's interpretation of events often challenges established Western opinions on them.

1. Read a modern Western historian's account of Tannenberg (e.g. in The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, 1962). Contrast this account of Russia's fatal entrance into the war to Solzhenitsyn's description of the same events.

2. Solzhenitsyn believes that Russia in the early 1900s needed reform but not revolution. What is the difference?

Describe Solzhenitsyn's attitude toward revolutionaries in August 1914. Although they seek necessary change...