Andreas Schönle is Professor of Russian at Queen Mary, University of London and author of The Ruler in the Garden.

This is a most important book, tracing the history of an idea so elusive yet so pervasive that only the most nuanced of approaches is capable of sketching its parameters without reducing it to cliché and caricature. Schönle dips deeply into literature and poetry, philosophy and history, architecture, painting, photography, prints, and the urban fabric itself in search of answers to a question of great relevance to all interested in the nature of modern Russia: what is it in Russia's attitude to its past that makes it so indifferent to ruins, so hostile to the preservation of that past's remains? This is intellectual history that is both imaginative and intellectually rigorous, a combination of historical sources and deeply personal aesthetic responses to the events of history.- Wendy Salmond, Chapman University

Andreas Schönle is Professor of Russian at Queen Mary, University of London and author of The Ruler in the Garden.

This is a most important book, tracing the history of an idea so elusive yet so pervasive that only the most nuanced of approaches is capable of sketching its parameters without reducing it to cliché and caricature. Schönle dips deeply into literature and poetry, philosophy and history, architecture, painting, photography, prints, and the urban fabric itself in search of answers to a question of great relevance to all interested in the nature of modern Russia: what is it in Russia's attitude to its past that makes it so indifferent to ruins, so hostile to the preservation of that past's remains? This is intellectual history that is both imaginative and intellectually rigorous, a combination of historical sources and deeply personal aesthetic responses to the events of history.- Wendy Salmond, Chapman University

Andreas Schönle is Professor of Russian at Queen Mary, University of London and author of The Ruler in the Garden.

This is a most important book, tracing the history of an idea so elusive yet so pervasive that only the most nuanced of approaches is capable of sketching its parameters without reducing it to cliché and caricature. Schönle dips deeply into literature and poetry, philosophy and history, architecture, painting, photography, prints, and the urban fabric itself in search of answers to a question of great relevance to all interested in the nature of modern Russia: what is it in Russia's attitude to its past that makes it so indifferent to ruins, so hostile to the preservation of that past's remains? This is intellectual history that is both imaginative and intellectually rigorous, a combination of historical sources and deeply personal aesthetic responses to the events of history.- Wendy Salmond, Chapman University