Eternal Russia

The former Moscow bureau chief of London's The Guardian presents an in-depth history of the former Soviet Union from 1987 to today. Jonathan Steele draws on interviews with Gorbachev, senior members of the Yeltsin inner circle, and many other sources to highlight the difficulty of establishing democracy and a free market in Russia.

More than 150 years after its publication, the Marquis de Custine's colorful account of his journey through Russia is more relevant today than ever before. "Throughout the years, Custine's Empire has remained one of the most famous Western accounts of czarist days".--San Francisco Chronicle. 16 pages of black-and-white photographs.

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an Informa company.

This volume introduces readers to an age-old question that has perplexed both Russians and Westerners. Is Russia the eastern flank of Europe? Or is it really the heartland of another civilization? In exploring this question, the authors present a sweeping survey of cultural, religious, political, and economic developments in Russia, especially over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Based on the inter-disciplinary Russian studies program at Dickinson College, this splendid collection will complement many curricula. The text features highlight boxes and selected illustrations. Each chapter ends with a glossary, study questions, and a reading list.

The contributors in this interdisciplinary collection address the problem of interconnection between the study of the “Other,” either Russian or American, and the shaping of national identities in the two countries at different stages of US–Russian relations. The focus of research interests were typically determined by the political and social debates in scholars’ native countries. In this book, leading Russian and American scholars analyze the problems arising from these intersections of academic, political, and sociocultural contexts and the implicit biases they entail. The book is divided into two parts, the first being a historical overview of past configurations of the interrelationship between fields and agendas, and the second covering the role of institutionalized area studies in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.In both parts the role of the “human factor” in the study of mutual representations is elucidating.

A comprehensive reader composed of landmark selections, guided by the insight that to understand contemporary Russia, students need to know that there are strongly competing interpretations of Russian politics, both past and present.