Description: This is the first environmental history of Russia's steppes. David Moon focuses on the settlement of migrants from central Russia, Ukraine, and central Europe, and analyses how naturalists and scientists came to understand the steppe environment, including the origins of the fertile black earth.
Review Quotes: "This is an incredibly rich book, full of important ideas about how to understand Suarez, Descartes, and Spinoza. It will be influential on scholars working on all three figures, and it makes an important contribution to the ongoing project of trying to understand 17th Century philosophy better in the light of prior scholastic material" -- Robert Pasnau, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado
"Moon has successfully placed the land itself front and center. He has demonstrated the pivotal role that Mennonites especially played as they successfully adapted to local conditions following their arrival in 1789. And he has placed the Imperial Russian grasslands within a global history that stretches from the North American prairies to Australasia. It deserves a broad readership."--The Russian Review"[C]ompelling and impressively researched....[Moon] has expertly documented an important development in the history of agricultural science...."--Historian