Description: A dazzling work of intellectual history by a world-renowned scholar, spanning the years from Peter the Great to the fall of the Soviet Union, this book gives us a clear and sweeping view of Russia not as an eternal barbarian menace but as an outermost, if laggard, member in the continuum of European nations.
Brief description: Martin Malia was Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991.
Review Quotes: The basic conception is original and interesting; the issues are real and clearly conceived; the style is pungent and alive; and the entire treatment rests on an exceptional combination of perspicacity and sensitiveness, both of thought about, and of feeling for, Russia past and present.--Isaiah Berlin