"Marx wrote that 'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.' He failed to note that, with the right person, it can come around a third time....as doggerel. Sabrina Petra Ramet's very mortal verses should be read aloud, even shouted, for they successfully deflate the somber pontificating and aca- demic harrumphing that often dominates Russian historical studies. Besides, they're riotously funny." -S. Frederick Starr, author of Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, 1917-1980 "Scholars will ...
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"Marx wrote that 'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.' He failed to note that, with the right person, it can come around a third time....as doggerel. Sabrina Petra Ramet's very mortal verses should be read aloud, even shouted, for they successfully deflate the somber pontificating and aca- demic harrumphing that often dominates Russian historical studies. Besides, they're riotously funny." -S. Frederick Starr, author of Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, 1917-1980 "Scholars will explode with laughter over the stunts of Lenin, Stalin, Peter the Great, and the other leaders-made-buffoons by Sabrina Ramet's off-kilter and hilarious interpretations of history. No prominent Russian leader is left un-pilloried, no Soviet ideologue left in quiet repose. And no reader is left with funny-bone unshattered by uncontrollable laugher over history's vagaries." -Jerry G. Pankhurst, co-editor of Understanding Soviet Society "Sabrina Ramet's collection reads as though Mother Goose, Lewis Carroll and the Cat in the Hat translated a course on Soviet history taught by Mel Brooks into light verse. Each piece relieves the usual solemnity of the subject with a welcome touch of the absurd." -Thomas F. Remington, author of Presidential Decrees in Russia: A Comparative Perspective "It is a real pleasure to read this iconoclastic book of verse that parodies the Russian ruling class from the Czars to Putin." -Robert O. Freedman, author of Moscow and the Middle East
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