Synopses & Reviews
Since the coming of
perestroika in 1985, scholars have had unprecedented access to Russian archives. In
Russia: A History, editor Gregory Freeze and twelve other American and European historians have mined these newly opened archives and browsed through the best contemporary scholarship to provide a major reinterpretation of the history of one of the world's great powers.
Here is the first major history of Russia to appear since the fall of the Soviet Union, beginning in the 8th century and ranging across a thousand years to the recently established Commonwealth of Independent States. What emerges is a nation of extremes--of imperial opulence and abject poverty, tyrannical power and subversive resistance, artistic achievement and economic crisis, glittering cities and frozen steppes. The contributors capture a powerful sense of Russia's national destiny of repeated themes and unchanging conditions. We see, for instance, that time and again, all-powerful autocrats like Ivan the Terrible and Stalin employed brutality to eliminate any challenge to their authority. Yet their hold on power was always under attack, threatened by bureaucratic incompetence, pervasive corruption, and resistance from below. Russian rulers have also had to contend with the same immense physical challenges: a huge and widely dispersed population, a perennial dearth of means and men to govern, a primitive infrastructure which, as the authors show, periodically dissolved into times of trouble, as in 1598, 1917, and 1991.
Handsomely illustrated with nearly 170 illustrations, including 12 color plates, this landmark history cuts through the myths that have surrounded Russia to tell the absorbing story of one of the world's most powerful nations.
Review
"A brisk, exciting tour of Russia's long journey from its Kievan origins to the early Yeltsin years....With stunningly beautiful illustrations and transparent prose...."--The Los Angeles Times Book Review
Synopsis
Thirteen American and European historians exploit the "archival revolution" of 1991 as well as the best contemporary scholarship to provide a major reinterpretation of Russian history. 16 color plates. 181 halftones & maps.
About the Author
Gregory L. Freeze is a Fellow at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian Studies as well as the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of History at Brandeis. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.
Table of Contents
Editor's Preface
List of Maps
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Note on Transliterations and Dates
1. From Kiev to Muscovy: The Beginnings to 1450, Janet Martin
2. Muscovite Russia 1450-1598, Nancy Shields Kollmann
3. From Muscovy Towards St Petersburg 1598-1689, Hans-Joachim Torke
4. The Petrine Era and After 1682-1740, John T. Alexander
5. The Age of Enlightenment 1740-1801, Gary Marker
6. Pre-Reform Russia 1801-55, David L. Ransel
7. Reform and Counter-Reform 1855-90, Gregory L. Freeze
8. Revolutionary Russia 1890-1914, Reginald E. Zelnik
9. Russia in War and Revolution 1914-21, Daniel T. Orlovsky
10. The New Economic Policy and the Revolutionary Experiment 1921-9, William B. Husband
11. Building Stalinism 1929-41, Lewis Siegelbaum
12. The Great Fatherland, War, and Late Stalinism 1941-53, William C. Fuller Jr
13. From Stalinism to Stagnation 1953-85, Gregory L. Freeze
14. From Perestroika Towards a New Order 1985-95, Martin McCauley
Chronology
Further Reading
List of Contributors
Glossary
Index