Description: An exploration of two crucial questions for the history of Eurasia and the wider world: What territory did Russia occupy at different stages of its history-and why?
Brief description: Paul W. Werth is Professor of History and Department Chair at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA. Since 2009, he has been serving as Editor of Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, a leading international journal. His books include At the Margins of Orthodoxy: Mission, Governance, and Confessional Politics in Russia's Volga-Kama Region (2002), Orthodoxy, Non-Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy: Sketches on the History of Religious Diversity in the Russian Empire (2012) [in Russian], and The Tsar's Foreign Faiths: Toleration and the Fate of Religious Freedom in Imperial Russia (2014).
Review Quotes:
"This is a deeply informed, jam-packed book." --The Russian Review
"A compelling overview of a critically important topic by a major scholar in the field. This book is must reading for anyone interested in the deep historical context of the Ukrainian war and problems of territory in Russia, past and present" --Willard Sunderland, Henry R. Winkler Professor of Modern History, University of Cincinnati, USA "How Russia Got Big is an important contribution to our understanding of the historical background to Russian expansion and of the driving forces which govern what is still the largest country on earth." --European History Quarterly "This short work is an excellent and concise analysis of a complex issue that has had a lingering impact on the Russian landscape and the world in general." --CHOICE "How Russia Got Big offers a sharp interpretive framework for thinking about scale, sovereignty and the changing meanings of 'Russia'. For students, general readers and specialists seeking a succinct synthesis, Werth provides a highly useful guide to how Russia became big, and why that bigness remains politically consequential today." --Survival: Global Politics and Strategy