{"product_id":"the-tsars-colonels-9780674911116","title":"The Tsars Colonels","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDavid Alan Rich weaves together several levels of narrative to show how the increasingly sophisticated, scientific, and positivistic work attitudes and habits Russia's general staff during the second half of the nineteenth century acculturated younger officers, redefining their relationship with, and responsibilities to, the state.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Tsar's Colonels\u003c\/i\u003e is an impressive study that demonstrates how the modernization of Russia's General Staff during the second half of the 19th century re-shaped its intellectual and strategic outlook and equipped the staff to play a strong, and at times dominant, role in shaping Russian foreign policy...[It] contributes to a number of debates in Russian military and social history and offers new insights on the structural roots of the Great War, and on the theoretical problems of modernization and professionalization. Rich's book provides a fascinating account of how the Imperial Russian Army struggled to modernize in a Darwinian world that dealt harshly with those who failed to adapt to changes in technology and military art. -- Robert A. Lyn * Military and BRAVO\/Veterans Outlook Magazines *\u003cbr\u003eDavid Rich's outstanding \u003ci\u003eThe Tsar's Colonels\u003c\/i\u003e is a highly original examination of the rise of the professional general staff in Russia in the period from the end of the Crimean war to the conclusion of the Franco-Russian alliance. Based on extensive archival research, informed by an impressive knowledge of the theoretical literature, and distinguished by its comparative perspective, the book casts light on the uneasy coexistence of 'premodern' and 'modern' elements within the Russian state, as well as the constraints that Russian reality placed on the empire's implementation of positivist agendas for military reform and strategic planning. An important contribution to international, strategic, social, and cultural history, fluidly written and trenchantly argued, \u003ci\u003eThe Tsar's Colonels\u003c\/i\u003e is a superb, sophisticated study by a talented young historian. -- William C. Fuller, Jr., U.S. Naval War College\u003cbr\u003eDavid Rich questions a venerable myth in Russian historiography: the centrality of the tensions between an autocratic state and a nascent 'civil society' to understanding the career of autocracy before 1914. In so doing, \u003ci\u003eThe Tsar's Colonels\u003c\/i\u003e deepens and broadens our understanding of the social, intellectual, and political factors that led to the emergence of a professional and technical elite within the Russian military establishment.  This book powerfully demonstrates how the forces that led to the rise of the Russian Main Staff also crystallized in the irreconcilable tensions that define the 'crisis of autocracy' in the first two decades of the twentieth century. -- David McDonald, University of Wisconsin, Madison\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Tsar's Colonels\u003c\/i\u003e is an impressive contribution to military history, diplomatic history, history of the professions and intellectual history, and will be read with great profit by scholars in all these fields. Within the small but very significant constellation of military professionals Rich focuses on, the real hero of the story is Nikolai Obruchev, who is revealed here in marvelously revisionist ways. The story, as Rich tells it, will have importance for debates over professionalization in the late Russian empire and its successor Soviet state, and even for current post-Soviet Russian debates about military doctrine. -- Mark von Hagen, Director, Harriman Institute, Columbia University\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePreface   Note on Translation and Transliteration   Introduction    The Emergence of General Staff Professionalism   Expert Knowledge and the Problem of Higher Military Staffs   Science and Military Statistics in Nicholas's Army   Main Staff Reform between Sevastopol and Sedan   Mortal Danger as Strategic Rebirth   The Main Staff Plans a War    Professionalism's Fruits   Experts versus Amateurs   Progress and Stalemate   Conclusion    Supplemental Data   Notes   Bibliography   Index","brand":"Harvard University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49403613249879,"sku":"9780674911116","price":71.36,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-tsars-colonels-9780674911116","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}