Books by Alan M. Ball

In 1921, Lenin called for the legalization of private trade and manufacturing. This New Economic Policy (NEP) spawned many thousands of private entrepreneurs, dubbed Nepmen. This title examines where the Nepmen came from, their importance in the Soviet economy, and the consequences of their "liquidation" at the end of the 1920s.

Drawing on a wide variety of contemporary journals, newspapers, films, and popular songs, Alan M. Ball compares American social, political, and cultural influence in two newborn Russian states: the young Soviet Union and the modern Russian Republic.

Warfare, epidemics, and famine left millions of Soviet children homeless during the 1920s. This title studies these abandoned children, and examines their lives and the strategies the government used to remove them from the streets lest they threaten plans to mold a new socialist generation.