Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"[Aleksandr Baranov] has never been the subject of a full-length scholarly biography. Empire Maker. . . is a praiseworthy effort to remedy that oversight. . . . Owens has woven biographical facts gleaned from widely scattered sources into a cohesive narrative set in historical and cultural context."
-- Katherine Arndt * Alaska History *
"This work is not merely the first comprehensive and well-researched biography of Baranov but also a valuable contribution to the multilayered and interdisciplinary study of Russian overseas colonialism. . . . The project is important not only for the academic community but also for politicians, the public, and the media on both sides of the Atlantic."
-- Victoria I. Zhuravleva * Journal of American History *
"[Empire Maker] transcends the limits of biography through some stellar archival work and by letting Baranov’s story recede at key times behind the larger epic of Russian America. The authors have managed to give us both a very useful picture of life as a merchant in nineteenth-century Russia as well as a new, very accessible general history of the colony that nicely complements Lydia Black’s and Ilya Vinkovetsky’s recent works on the subject. . . . [An] excellent biography."
-- Ryan Jones * The Russian Review *
"What will surely remain the definitive English-language study of Aleksandr Andreevich Baranov. . . . This deeply researched study is the rare book that historians of Russia and the North American frontier alike will read with great interest and benefit."
-- Robert H. Greene * Montana: The Magazine of Western History *
"This is an highly enjoyable book about a part of America that few people in America would even know about. The author does an excellent job of placing Mr. Baranov in his time and the events that would influence him. An excellent book about a man very people know about."
-- Kevin Winter * Manhattan Book Review *
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments
1. A Man of the North
2. Siberian Merchant Capitalist
3. Moving to America
4. Taking Command
5. Calamities and Catastrophes
6. The Missionary Monks and the Chief Manager
7. Government Men, Monks, and the Alutiiq Rebellion
8. The Russian-American Company
9. The Sitka Sound War
10. Beyond Alaska
11. Averting Disasters
12. Closing the Baranov Era
Abbreviations: Russian Archival Repositories
Notes
Bibliography
Index
