In Russia: The Story of War, Gregory Carleton convincingly argues that in the historical mythology of the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries especially, “Russia's wars are pushed into a single frame of reference that, as held in collective memory, fosters a distinct national identity both born and bred in war” (3). He suggests that these “archetypal sets of causality, character types, scenarios, and outcomes” create a “neo-nationalist civic religion” in the Russian Federation today, and that these mythic tropes outlasted both the Romanov Dynasty and the Soviet era to dominate in present-day Russia. In an engaging and accessible way, Carleton explores the central Russian war myth while not flattening all Russian history into one narrative. He also examines the historical truths that the war myth elides, the western counter-myths of Russian conquest and expansionism, the events that have to be squeezed awkwardly into the myth, and internal Russian revisions and rejections of the myth. Carleton highlights numerous literary and historical sources to demonstrate the myth's shape; while these sources are not comprehensive, they effectively sketch out the essence of the myth.

Carleton first explores the myth's origins through Russia's early history, including the Mongol invasion, Aleksandr Nevskii's victories, and the Time of Troubles. He identifies the key aspects of the myth: the threat of encirclement and the reality of invasion; the bond to the Russian land, or rodina, that gives one birth; folk resistance to invasion by outsiders; Christ-like willingness to die for the rodina because “there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends” (28). Mythic Russia sacrifices itself to save all of Europe from invaders such as the Mongols, and later Napoleon and Hitler. The second chapter explores the maturation of the myth primarily through narratives of the Napoleonic invasion. As a literary scholar, Carleton naturally gravitates toward Lev Tolstoi's War and Peace, but also features other works such as Nikolai Karamzin's histories as nineteenth century repositories of the myth.

Next Carleton skips over the first Soviet decades to consider the Second World War as the centerpiece of the modern war myth and of contemporary Russian civic religion. In a particularly well-crafted chapter, Carleton lays out how from 1945 to the present, Soviet and Russian authors and filmmakers have both upheld the war myth and undercut it. Post-glasnost’ “revisionist” works such Viktor Astafev's 1994 novel The Damned and the Dead emphasized “futility, waste, betrayal” (97), and called attention to the brutal Soviet leadership that callously sent millions of unprepared soldiers to die. As Carleton put it, Astafev insisted that victory “came at so great a cost that pride in sacrifice should become shame in carnage” (91). Recent Putin-era treatments of the war such as the twelve-volume history sponsored by the Defense Ministry in 2015 vigorously rebut the revisionist works and depict the war as a “sacred” event.

Carleton then turns to the Russian soldier, his “stoikost (courage, resilience and defiance [122])” and his contempt of death; how Russia's war myth reframed defeats into mythic victories; and the constant threat to Russia of internal disunity during “times of trouble” and civil war. The latter two chapters allow Carleton to focus on how national disasters that challenge the myth such as the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, the First World War, the 1918–21 Civil War, and the war in Afghanistan could be rewritten into the myth. For instance, Carleton argues that in Fyodor Bondarchuk's 2005 film Ninth Company, the war in Afghanistan is not viewed as a tragic mistake but rather an exploit in which loyal Russians sacrificed their lives while fulfilling their duties. In these chapters, the analysis moves back and forth from Napoleon to World War II, from Afghanistan to Crimea, addressing the key elements of the myth more fully than the progression of its development.

In the final chapter and the epilogue, Carleton points to the contemporary political resonance of the war myth and how it justifies Russia's military actions as necessary in a world in which it is once again “encircled” by the expansion of NATO. The myth suggests that: “tomorrow is always June 22; every action taken by outsiders reflects a plot with fatal designs on Russia; and a Judas is born every day” (246). These narratives continue to emphasize pride in Russian achievements and in “victory” despite the continued presence of accounts both inside and outside of Russia that challenge the “glorious war” myth. Gregory Carleton has thus ably exposed the mythological underpinnings of Russia's wars as well as of other key events like the Stalinist purges of the 1930s.