American historian Peter Kenez, based on archival materials and memoirs of the leaders of the White movement, wrote a study on the Civil War in Russia, which is divided into two books: on the birth and heyday of the Volunteer Army (1917-1918) and on its decline (1919-1920). The author analyzes the events on the example of the southern part of Russia, where the Civil War began and where it ended. He gives an objective assessment of one of the bloodiest and most tragic periods of Russian history. Peter Kenez not only depicted a reliable picture of the heyday and decline of the White Guard movement to protect the Motherland from the rule of the Bolsheviks, Germans and anarchists, but also painted vivid reliable portraits of the leaders of the White cause: infantry general Mikhail Alekseev (1857-1918), lieutenant general Anton Denikin (1872-1947), lieutenant general Baron Peter Wrangel (1878-1928) and many other Russian commanders with all the advantages and disadvantages of their complex characters.