Description
Book SynopsisMany books chronicle the remarkable life of Peter the Great, but none analyze how his famous reforms took root and spread in Russia. By century's end, Russia was poised to play a critical role in the Napoleonic wars and boasted an elite culture on the cusp of its golden age. Here, Cracraft offers a brilliant new interpretation of this pivotal era.
Trade ReviewCracraft's interpretive history, grounded in his considerable expertise and reputation, is a welcome addition. His writing is engaging, free of jargon, and very accessible for both students and general readers with an interest in Russia. -- Cathy A. Frierson, University of New Hampshire
Essential reading for those seeking the origin of Russia's ongoing friction between Westernizers and nationalists. -- Gilbert Taylor * Booklist *
This impressive little book [is] at once informative and intellectually interesting. -- E. A. Cole * Choice *
This book represents a distillation of James Cracraft's magisterial work
The Petrine Revolution, the three volumes of which cover Russian architecture, imagery and verbal culture. It is firmly rooted in a lifetime of research and a formidable body of sources, but targets the general reader in the form of an accessible, lightly-footnoted interpretative history of the reforms of Russia's most important ruler, who reigned from 1682 to 1725. -- Lindsey Hughes * Times Literary Supplement *
Anglo-American historians have spent a great deal of effort on Peter and his reign in the last decades, the pioneer among them Cracraft himself. He has used his own work and that of his colleagues with thoroughness and tact to provide his own synthesis of the events and their meaning... Cracraft has succeeded in conveying the latest understanding of Peter's time, one that he himself has been so central in creating, in an elegant and highly readable form. -- Paul Bushkovitch * Cahiers du Monde Russe *
Table of ContentsPreface 1. Peter and Company 2. Military and Naval Revolutions 3. Diplomatic and Bureaucratic Revolutions 4. Cultural Revolution 5. Revolution and Resistance 6. St. Petersburg Conclusion Chronology Notes Further Reading Credits Index
