Description
Book SynopsisIs Russian history one big inevitable failure? The Soviet Union's demise and Russia's ensuing troubles have led many to wonder. But this is to look through a skewed prism indeed. This history of Russia takes us beyond the Soviet haze deep into the nation's - not at all inevitable, and in key respects remarkably successful - past.
Trade Review"If half a millennium of Russian history is to be distilled into a hundred pages of text, one has to have a strong thesis. Poe does... If those who disagree can offer a counterargument as compact, vigorous, and accessible as Poe's, the rest of us will greatly benefit."--Foreign Affairs "Condensing 1,400 years of history into 100 well-argued pages is a remarkable feat, one Poe accomplishes in terse but powerfully stated prose... Poe effectively commits to his chosen path of navigation and distills his observations and vast knowledge into a clear and well-presented theory. The author deserves credit for taking on the gutsy task of re-educating that he sees as a misinformed public with humility intact, an achievement that is a testament to the purity of his intent."--Gabriella Gershenson, San Francisco Chronicle "Students will find Poe an able provocateur of debate."--Booklist "This slim volume offers a sweeping yet cogent and highly stimulating reinterpretation of the entire course of Russian history from the time of the earliest settlers in Russian lands to the collapse of the Soviet Union. While intended for general readers, the author's views are firmly grounded in recent scholarship."--Choice "The task of compressing the whole history of Russia into a hundred easy-to-read pages would be a hard challenge for any serious historian, but the proposition of building and testing in the same space an innovative concept of what Russia is about might seem beyond possible. This neat book by Poe, which many readers would find difficult to put down before turning the last page, is the tangible proof that such a task can indeed by accomplished--and with astounding ease."--Pavel Baev, Journal of Peace Research "The thesis of this volume is that as late as the fifteenth century Russia was largely irrelevant to world history, that it became a noteworthy player in the sixteenth century, and that it remained so most of the time until 1991."--Richard Hellie, Journal of Modern History
Table of ContentsList of Maps ix Preface xi Chapter 1: What Russia Is and What It Is Not 1 Chapter 2: From Slavs to Rus' 10 Chapter 3: From Rus' to Russia 28 Chapter 4: The Challenge of Early Modernity 38 Chapter 5: The Origins of the Russian Moment 46 Chapter 6: The Progress of the Russian Moment 58 Chapter 7: From Early Modernity to Modernity 71 Chapter 8: The End of the Russian Moment 86 Chapter 9: Coda: What Might Have Been 91 Chronology 105 Bibliographic Note 111 Index 115
