Distant Friends and Intimate Enemies

This bold, sweeping history of the turbulent American-Russian relationship is unique in being written jointly by American and Russian authors. David Foglesong, Ivan Kurilla and Victoria Zhuravleva together reveal how and why America and Russia shifted from being warm friends and even tacit allies to being ideological rivals, geopolitical adversaries, and demonic foils used in the construction or affirmation of their national identities. As well as examining diplomatic, economic, and military interactions between the two countries, they illuminate how filmmakers, cartoonists, writers, missionaries and political activists have admired, disparaged, lionized, envied, satirized, loved, and hated people in the other land. The book shows how the stories they told and the images they created have shaped how the two countries have understood each other from the eighteenth century to the present and how often their violent clashes have arisen from mutual misunderstanding and misrepresentations.

David Foglesong is a professor of history at Rutgers University. He is the author of The American Mission and the 'Evil Empire': The Crusade for a 'Free Russia' Since 1881 (2007) and America's Secret War Against Bolshevism: US Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1920 (2014).

Ivan Kurilla was a professor of history and international relations at the European University at St. Petersburg before he was forced to leave Russia in 2024. He is the author of Transoceanic Partners: America and Russia in the 1830-50s, Frenemies: History of Opinions, Phantasies, Contacts, Mutual (Mis)Understanding of Russia and the USA, Americans and All the Rest (all in Russian).

Victoria I. Zhuravleva is a professor of history and Chair of the Department of American Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia. She is the author of Understanding Russia in the United States: Images and Myths (in Russian) and The Common Past of Russians and Americans (both in Russian and English).