R175.00
Saint Petersburg – Sinclair McKay’s acclaimed history of the city Hitler tried and failed to destroy, centred on the 900-day Siege of Leningrad and tracing the city from Peter the Great to Putin. This is the 2026 Penguin paperback, first printing, 432 pages, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Berlin and Dresden. In near fine condition, clean and apparently unread.
1 in stock
Saint Petersburg: The City That Defied Hitler is a history of one of Europe’s great cities by Sinclair McKay, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Berlin, Dresden and The Secret Life of Bletchley Park. First published in hardback by Viking in 2025, this is the 2026 Penguin Books paperback, first printing.
At the heart of the book is the Siege of Leningrad, the 900 days and nights from 1941 to 1944 during which the Nazis encircled the city intending to starve its two and a half million inhabitants to death. McKay draws on first-hand accounts to show ordinary Leningraders enduring hunger, bitter cold and bombardment. Around this he sets the wider story of the city, from Peter the Great’s founding of his “window on to Europe” through its years as Petrograd and Leningrad to the post-Soviet era and its most famous modern son, Vladimir Putin. Saint Petersburg runs to 432 pages.
The siege remains one of the great epics of the Second World War, and McKay tells it from the perspective of the people who lived through it. Saint Petersburg has been widely praised by historians and reviewers, and it offers useful context for understanding Russia today.
Saint Petersburg is an ideal read for anyone interested in the Second World War, the Eastern Front, Russian history or the history of great cities, and for readers who have enjoyed McKay’s earlier books on Berlin and Dresden.
Condition – Near Fine
A near fine copy of the Penguin paperback, 2026 first printing. The covers are clean and bright with no creases, the spine is uncreased, and the page edges are clean with no foxing or marks. The book appears unread or barely read.






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