Synopses & Reviews
Now completely revised in this eighth edition,
A History of Russia covers the entire span of the country's history, from ancient times to the post-communist present. Keeping with the hallmark of the text, Riasanovsky and Steinberg examine all aspects of Russia's history--political, international, military, economic, social, and cultural--with a commitment to objectivity, fairness, and balance, and to reflecting recent research and new trends in scholarly interpretation. New chapters on politics, society, and culture since 1991 explore Russia's complex experience after communism and discuss its chances of becoming a more stable and prosperous country in the future.
Widely acclaimed as the best one-volume history available, A History of Russia is also available in two split volumes--the first covers early Russia through the nineteenth century and the second ranges from 1855 to the present. Volume II features an additional introductory chapter that links Russia's modern history to the events that preceded it.
Review
"Nicholas Riasanovsky and Mark Steinberg's new two-volume
A History of Russia is a masterpiece, as comprehensive and scholarly as its previous editions but now updated to include chapters on contemporary-or at least late 20th century-Russian politics, society, culture, and the arts. There can be few single texts that deal more carefully with so great a range of historical eras, and few that do so while covering so broad a spectrum."-Catherine Merridale,
University of London for the
London Times Book Review, February 24, 2006
About the Author
Nicholas Riasanovsky is Professor Emeritus of History the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of several books, including
A Parting of Ways: Government and the Educated Public in Russia: 1801-1855 (1976) and
The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought (OUP, 1985).
Mark Steinberg is Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Specializing in the cultural, intellectual, and social history of Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, his many books include Voices of Revolution, 1917 (2001) and Proletarian Imagination: Self, Modernity, and the Sacred in Russia, 1910-1925 (2002). Since 2006, he has been editor of the journal Slavic Review.
Table of Contents
Maps
Illustrations
New to the Eighth Edition
Preface to the Eighth Edition
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. The Geographical Environment
2. Russia before the Russians
PART II: KIEVAN RUS
3. The Origins of the Kievan State
4. Kievan Rus: A Political Outline
5. Kievan Rus: Economy, Society, Institutions
6. Kievan Rus: Religion and Culture
PART III: APPANAGE RUSSIA
7. Appanage Russia: Introduction
8. The Mongols and Russia
9. Lord Novgorod the Great
10. The Southwest and the Northeast
11. The Rise of Moscow
12. Appanage Russia: Economy, Society, Institutions
13. Appanage Russia: Religion and Culture
14. The Lithuanian-Russian State
PART IV: MUSCOVITE RUSSIA
15. The Reigns of Ivan the Terrible, 1533-84, and of Theodore, 1584-98
16. The Time of Troubles, 1598-1613
17. The Reigns of Michael, 1613-45, Alexis, 1645-76, and Theodore, 1676-82
18. Muscovite Russia: Economy, Society, Institutions
19. Muscovite Russia: Religion and Culture
PART V: IMPERIAL RUSSIA
20. The Reign of Peter the Great, 1682-1725
21. Russian History from Peter the Great to Catherine the Great: The Reigns of Catherine I, 1725-27, Peter II, 1727-30, Anne, 1730-40, Ivan VI, 1740-41, Elizabeth, 1741-62, and Peter III, 1762
22. The Reigns of Catherine the Great, 1762-96, and Paul, 1796-1801
23. The Economic and Social Development of Russia in the Eighteenth Century
24. Russian Culture in the Eighteenth Century
25. The Reign of Alexander I, 1801-25
26. The Reign of Nicholas I, 1825-55
27. The Economic and Social Development of Russia in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
28. Russian Culture in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century