Description
Book SynopsisRussia in World History uses a comparative framework to understand Russian history in a global context. The book challenges the idea of Russia as an outlier of European civilization by examining select themes in modern Russian history alongside cases drawn from the British Empire.Choi Chatterjee analyzes the concepts of nation and empire, selfhood and subjectivity, socialism and capitalism, and revolution and the world order in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. In doing so she rethinks many historical narratives that bluntly posit a liberal West against a repressive, authoritarian Russia. Instead Chatterjee argues for a wider perspective which reveals that imperial practices relating to the appropriation of human and natural resources were shared across European empires, both East and West.Incorporating the stories of famous thinkers, such as Leo Tolstoy, Emma Goldman, Wangari Maathai, Arundhati Roy, among others. This unique interpretation of modern Russia is knitted together
Trade ReviewThis book is hugely ambitious. Chatterjee manages to pull off this remarkable intellectual experiment (and the book is novel enough to be called so) with remarkable lucidity. The book is a masterclass in identifying the base elements of thinking about the big questions - nationalism, ethnicity, race relations, class – as they relate to different countries – continents, even – and distilling these intellectual concerns and concepts down to their shared essence. * Zoe Knox, Associate Professor of Modern Russia History, University of Leicester, UK *
Meticulously researched and passionately written Choi Chatterjee’s Russia in World History destabilizes insular narratives of the “liberal West” and “autocratic Russia” as well as rigid typologies of western and eastern empires and opens up new perspectives on violence, modernizing ideologies, alternative political and social imaginaries, and history writing in the global imperial context. The book takes the reader on a fascinating journey with pairs of intellectuals from allegedly incomparable British and Russian/Soviet empires and masterfully shows potential and limits of comparative and trans-national history. The biographic approach not only makes the text usable in a history classroom, but also helps elucidate larger-than-life questions of political history through a human scale. * Alexander Semyonov, Professor, Chair, Department of History, National Research University-Higher School of Economics, Russia *
Choi Chatterjee masterfully brings together global imperial worlds. Sorting through definitions of internal and external colonies, she focuses on racialized concepts of victimization to examine how western pundits overlooked brutal treatment of colonial subjects in India and Africa while spotlighting Tsarist and Soviet “crimes” against their own people. Thus was born the image of the Russian carceral state. * Kate Brown, Professor in History of Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA *
This exciting and provocative book demands a significant reorientation in our understandings of global history. Rather than relying on lazy bifurcations of east and west, despotism and liberalism, Chatterjee asks us to critically evaluate the relationships and comparisons between the Empires of Britain and Russia. She draws together a rich tapestry of intellectual frameworks, firmly grounded in individual experience. This richly imagined and deeply personal piece of scholarship will reward readers from a wide range of disciplines. * Sarah Badcock, Professor of Modern History, University of Nottingham, UK *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1. Tolstoy and Tagore: Principles of Global Thinking 2. Imperial Incarcerations: Ekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaia and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar 3. The Empire Vanishes as the Nation Remains: Vasily Klyuchevsky and the G. M. Trevelyan 4. Alone and Against Systems Thinking: Emma Goldman and M. N. Roy 5. Capitalism and socialism on the farm: Mukhamet Shayakhmetov and Wangari Maathai 6. The Cold War Retold: Zainab Al-Ghazali and Urszula Dudziak 7. Whom Does a Woman Speak For in a Post-World? Anna Politkovskaya and Arundhati Roy. Interview with Lisa Kirschenbaum. Conclusion Select Bibliography Index
