The Imperial Russian Project: Autocratic Politics, Economic Development, and Social Fragmentation - Softcover

Rieber, Alfred

9781487520380: The Imperial Russian Project: Autocratic Politics, Economic Development, and Social Fragmentation

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1487520387 ISBN 13: 9781487520380

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2017

A pioneer in the field of Russian and Soviet studies in the West, Alfred J. Rieber’s five decade career has focused on increasing our understanding of the Russian Empire from Peter the Great to the coming of the First World War.

The Imperial Russian Project is a collection of Rieber’s lifetime of work, focusing on three interconnected themes of this time period: the role of reform in the process of state building, the interaction of state and social movements, and alternative visions of economic development. This volume contains Rieber’s previously published, classic essays, edited and updated, as well as newly written works that together provide a well-integrated framework for reflection on this topic. Rieber argues that Russia’s style of autocratic governance not only reflected the personalities of the rulers but also the challenges of overcoming economic backwardness in a society lacking common citizenship and a cohesive ruling class. The Imperial Russian Project reveals how during the nineteenth century the tsar was obliged to operate within a changing and more complex world, reducing his options and restricting his freedom of action.

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About the Author:

Alfred J. Rieber is a premier historian of Russia and the Soviet Union. He is University Professor Emeritus at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania.
Yanni Kotsonis is an associate professor in the Departments of History and of Russian and Slavic Studies and founding Director of the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at New York University.

Review:

"Alfred Rieber belong to the first generation of postwar Russian experts in the United States, yet sixty years later he is still going strong, producing research of great originality and powerful insight. This collection of articles – too rich for a review to do justice – prsents a searching and distinctive interpretation of the evolution of Imperial Russia from the eighteenth to the twentieth century."

(Geoffrey Hosking, University College London Journal of Modern History, September 2019)

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