Having published The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambassador to the Court of St James’s, 1932-1943, an abridged version of the Soviet Ambassador to London diaries, in 2015, Yale University Press has now published The Complete Maisky Diaries in three volumes. The set is edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky, emeritus professor of history at Tel Aviv University, and presents the entire original diary which is 500,000 words in length. The editor provides annotations, extensive commentary to contextualize the diaries and fill gaps in their keeping, and three biographical chapters on Ivan Maisky (“The Making of a Soviet Diplomat,” “End of an Era: Maisky’s Recall,” and “The Price of Fame: A Late Repression).
Maisky was appointed Soviet ambassador to London in 1932, despite his having a dubious background as a Menshevik and member of the anti-Bolshevik Komuch government in 1918 who only belatedly joined the Bolsheviks. His earlier associations always cast “a huge…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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