This course will examine the significant events, themes, and personalities that have shaped the turbulent history of Russia and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century. Key periods and topics will include: the failed “constitutional experiment” of late Imperial Russia; the dynamics of the Russian Revolution and Civil War; the impact of Josef Stalin's “revolution from above” and its program of collectivization, industrialization, and mass terror; the traumatic Soviet experience of World War II; the role of the Soviet Union in the Cold War; the rise of Gorbachev and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union.