Author Description

Perhaps the most challenging project under Stalin's first five-year plan was the race to build Europe's largest automobile factory and an adjacent city in just 18 months. The site was Nizhny Novgorod, later named Gorky. To design and construct both factory and city, Soviet officials approached the premier industrial builder in America, the Austin Company of Cleveland, Ohio. From near-breakdown during the initial months, through a Russian winter that called for bravery and ingenuity, to a frantic race toward completion in the final month, Building Utopia reveals the humanity of both communists and capitalists and the contrasts between Russian and American cultures.