Alexander Ii And The Modernization Of Russia

The Great Reforms undertaken during the reign of Alexander II represented a unique attempt by the tsarist government to restructure virtually every aspect of Russian life, beginning with the emancipation of the serfs and continuing through reforms of local government, the judiciary, the military, education, the financial system, censorship, and other domains. This volume, the work of an international group of scholars that includes historians from Russia, maps out the major landmarks in the conceptualization and implementation of the Great Reforms during the reign of Alexander II and proposes a variety of perspectives from which to view them. -- From publisher's description.

This resource is written for for students studying the economic and social development of Russia and the Soviet Union, as well as the nature of Russian government and its impact on the Russian people in this period.

This eagerly awaited study of Russia under Alexander I, Nicholas I and Alexander II -- the Russia of War and Peace and Anna Karenina -- brings the series near to completion. David Saunders examines Russia's failure to adapt to the era of reform and democracy ushered into the rest of Europe by the French Revolution. Why, despite so much effort, did it fail? This is a superb book, both as a portrait of an age and as a piece of sustained historical analysis.

This selection of documents - for the most part never before translated into English - traces the process of modernization which took place in Russia between 1856 and 1881. Political, social and economic developments are dealt with in thematic sections and the documents also show the growth of the revolutionary movement and conservative attempts to quell it. The great flowering of Russian literature and art during the quarter-century is also reflected. The documents are accompanied by individual commentaries and an extensive guide to further reading, whilst the volume is prefaced by a substantial introductory essay setting the documents in context.

Russian history is full of recurrences which are not fortuitous, but the product of underlying causes that have changed little over the centuries. In this book, W.E. Mosse offers a view of the counterpart of the recent perestroika movement from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He examines the causes and the results of the reform movement that worked for change before 1914 - in particular the reforms associated with Tsar Alexander II, Witte and Stolypin. In the process he goes some way towards putting the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s into an historical perspective.