Steven A. Usitalo is assistant professor of history at Northern State University. William Benton Whisenhunt is professor of history at the College of DuPage.

The essays are uniformly good; some are excellent. Recommended.

• Introduction: The Seventeenth CenturyChapter 1: The Disturbing Legacy of the Time of TroublesChester S. L. DunningPart I: The Russian Eighteenth CenturyChapter 2: The Revolution of Peter the GreatJames CracraftChapter 3: Masks and Masquerade at the Court of Elizabeth Petrovna (1741–1742)Jelena PogosjanChapter 4: Russia's "First" Scientist: The (Self-)Fashioning of Mikhail LomonosovSteven A. UsitaloChapter 5: Andrei Bolotov: Portrait of an Enlightened SeigneurColum LeckeyChapter 6: Did Catherine the Great and Grigorii Potemkin Wed? Some Myths, Facts, and Observations on Secret Royal MarriagesDouglas SmithPart II: The Russian Nineteenth CenturyChapter 7: The Invention of "Russianness" in the Late Eighteenth–Early Nineteenth CenturyAlexander M. MartinChapter 8: Starts and Stops: The Development of Official Diplomatic Relations between Russia and the United StatesWilliam Benton WhisenhuntChapter 9: The Decembrist Pavel Pestel and the Roots of Russian RepublicanismPatrick O'MearaChapter 10: Economic Backwardness in Geographical Perspective: Russia's Nineteenth CenturySusan P. McCaffrayChapter 11: The Trial of Vera ZasulichAna SiljakChapter 12: The Zemstvo in Late Imperial Russia: Social and Political Change in the CountrysideThomas E. PorterPart III: Soviet RussiaChapter 13: Popular Aspirations, the New Politics, and the October RevolutionRex A. WadeChapter 14: The Jewish Question in the Soviet Union, 1917–1953Jeffrey VeidlingerChapter 15: Aviation Cinema in Stalin's Russia: Conformity, Collectivity, and the Conflict with FascismScott W. PalmerChapter 16: Political Loyalties in Leningrad During the "Great Patriotic War"Richard BidlackChapter 17: Empire Besieged: Postwar Politics (1945–1953)Kees BoterbloemChapter 18: Khrushchev: The Impact of Personality on PoliticsWilliam TaubmanChapter 19: Late-Soviet Prerequisites for Post-Soviet Disasters: ReflectionsSergei ArutiunovChapter 20: Gorbachev and the Soviet Collapse: Stirrings of Accountable Government?Martha Merritt

Steven A. Usitalo is assistant professor of history at Northern State University. William Benton Whisenhunt is professor of history at the College of DuPage.

The essays are uniformly good; some are excellent. Recommended.

• Introduction: The Seventeenth CenturyChapter 1: The Disturbing Legacy of the Time of TroublesChester S. L. DunningPart I: The Russian Eighteenth CenturyChapter 2: The Revolution of Peter the GreatJames CracraftChapter 3: Masks and Masquerade at the Court of Elizabeth Petrovna (1741–1742)Jelena PogosjanChapter 4: Russia's "First" Scientist: The (Self-)Fashioning of Mikhail LomonosovSteven A. UsitaloChapter 5: Andrei Bolotov: Portrait of an Enlightened SeigneurColum LeckeyChapter 6: Did Catherine the Great and Grigorii Potemkin Wed? Some Myths, Facts, and Observations on Secret Royal MarriagesDouglas SmithPart II: The Russian Nineteenth CenturyChapter 7: The Invention of "Russianness" in the Late Eighteenth–Early Nineteenth CenturyAlexander M. MartinChapter 8: Starts and Stops: The Development of Official Diplomatic Relations between Russia and the United StatesWilliam Benton WhisenhuntChapter 9: The Decembrist Pavel Pestel and the Roots of Russian RepublicanismPatrick O'MearaChapter 10: Economic Backwardness in Geographical Perspective: Russia's Nineteenth CenturySusan P. McCaffrayChapter 11: The Trial of Vera ZasulichAna SiljakChapter 12: The Zemstvo in Late Imperial Russia: Social and Political Change in the CountrysideThomas E. PorterPart III: Soviet RussiaChapter 13: Popular Aspirations, the New Politics, and the October RevolutionRex A. WadeChapter 14: The Jewish Question in the Soviet Union, 1917–1953Jeffrey VeidlingerChapter 15: Aviation Cinema in Stalin's Russia: Conformity, Collectivity, and the Conflict with FascismScott W. PalmerChapter 16: Political Loyalties in Leningrad During the "Great Patriotic War"Richard BidlackChapter 17: Empire Besieged: Postwar Politics (1945–1953)Kees BoterbloemChapter 18: Khrushchev: The Impact of Personality on PoliticsWilliam TaubmanChapter 19: Late-Soviet Prerequisites for Post-Soviet Disasters: ReflectionsSergei ArutiunovChapter 20: Gorbachev and the Soviet Collapse: Stirrings of Accountable Government?Martha Merritt

Steven A. Usitalo is assistant professor of history at Northern State University. William Benton Whisenhunt is professor of history at the College of DuPage.

The essays are uniformly good; some are excellent. Recommended.

• Introduction: The Seventeenth CenturyChapter 1: The Disturbing Legacy of the Time of TroublesChester S. L. DunningPart I: The Russian Eighteenth CenturyChapter 2: The Revolution of Peter the GreatJames CracraftChapter 3: Masks and Masquerade at the Court of Elizabeth Petrovna (1741–1742)Jelena PogosjanChapter 4: Russia's "First" Scientist: The (Self-)Fashioning of Mikhail LomonosovSteven A. UsitaloChapter 5: Andrei Bolotov: Portrait of an Enlightened SeigneurColum LeckeyChapter 6: Did Catherine the Great and Grigorii Potemkin Wed? Some Myths, Facts, and Observations on Secret Royal MarriagesDouglas SmithPart II: The Russian Nineteenth CenturyChapter 7: The Invention of "Russianness" in the Late Eighteenth–Early Nineteenth CenturyAlexander M. MartinChapter 8: Starts and Stops: The Development of Official Diplomatic Relations between Russia and the United StatesWilliam Benton WhisenhuntChapter 9: The Decembrist Pavel Pestel and the Roots of Russian RepublicanismPatrick O'MearaChapter 10: Economic Backwardness in Geographical Perspective: Russia's Nineteenth CenturySusan P. McCaffrayChapter 11: The Trial of Vera ZasulichAna SiljakChapter 12: The Zemstvo in Late Imperial Russia: Social and Political Change in the CountrysideThomas E. PorterPart III: Soviet RussiaChapter 13: Popular Aspirations, the New Politics, and the October RevolutionRex A. WadeChapter 14: The Jewish Question in the Soviet Union, 1917–1953Jeffrey VeidlingerChapter 15: Aviation Cinema in Stalin's Russia: Conformity, Collectivity, and the Conflict with FascismScott W. PalmerChapter 16: Political Loyalties in Leningrad During the "Great Patriotic War"Richard BidlackChapter 17: Empire Besieged: Postwar Politics (1945–1953)Kees BoterbloemChapter 18: Khrushchev: The Impact of Personality on PoliticsWilliam TaubmanChapter 19: Late-Soviet Prerequisites for Post-Soviet Disasters: ReflectionsSergei ArutiunovChapter 20: Gorbachev and the Soviet Collapse: Stirrings of Accountable Government?Martha Merritt