false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg 1029979 1 <p> The Soviet Union crumbles and Russia rises from the rubble, once again the great nation--a perfect scenario, but for one point: Russia was never a nation. And this, says the eminent historian Geoffrey Hosking, is at the heart of the Russians' dilemma today, as they grapple with the rudiments of nationhood. His book is about the Russia that never was, a three-hundred-year history of empire building at the expense of national identity.</p><p> Russia begins in the sixteenth century, with the inception of one of the most extensive and diverse empires in history. Hosking shows how this undertaking, the effort of conquering, defending, and administering such a huge mixture of territories and peoples, exhausted the productive powers of the common people and enfeebled their civic institutions. Neither church nor state was able to project an image of "Russian-ness" that could unite elites and masses in a consciousness of belonging to the same nation. Hosking depicts two Russias, that of the gentry and of the peasantry, and reveals how the gap between them, widened by the Tsarist state's repudiation of the Orthodox messianic myth, continued to grow throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Here we see how this myth, on which the empire was originally based, returned centuries later in the form of the revolutionary movement, which eventually swept away the Tsarist Empire but replaced it with an even more universalist one. Hosking concludes his story in 1917, but shows how the conflict he describes continues to affect Russia right up to the present day.</p> 1016235 15 10 1998 Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917, Enlarged Edition total:10|5:0|4:1|3:0|2:0|1:0| 10 38 16 0 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 0 0 false Thu Nov 05 11:58:18 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 11:58:18 -0800 2009 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 4 0 false Sun Oct 25 18:42:23 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 25 18:42:23 -0700 2009 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 0 0 false Tue Aug 04 14:37:45 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 14:15:55 -0700 2009 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 4 0 false Thu Jul 30 21:03:48 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 21:03:48 -0700 2009 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 5 0 false Thu Jun 11 11:02:47 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 23 13:45:17 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 11 11:02:47 -0700 2009 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 0 0 false Thu Apr 23 12:35:09 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 23 12:35:09 -0700 2009 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 0 0 false Wed Mar 04 23:34:55 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 04 23:34:55 -0800 2009 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 0 0 false Sun Jan 18 15:20:09 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 15:20:09 -0800 2009 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 4 0 false Tue Nov 04 13:17:51 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 04 13:17:51 -0800 2008 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 0 0 false Mon Mar 24 11:17:17 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 24 11:17:17 -0700 2008 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 3 0 false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Mar 21 13:48:33 -0700 2008 Fri Mar 21 13:48:46 -0700 2008 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 3 0 false Tue Feb 05 17:27:14 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 05 17:27:14 -0800 2008 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 4 0 false Tue Feb 19 04:10:14 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 03 21:27:27 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 03 21:27:34 -0800 2008 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 4 0 false Sat Nov 24 22:15:02 -0800 2007 Sat Nov 24 22:15:02 -0800 2007 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 4 0 false Tue Oct 02 17:16:43 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 02 17:16:43 -0700 2007 1029979 0674781198 9780674781191 10 0 3.80 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180356976m/1029979.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1029979.Russia_People_and_Empire_1552_1917_Enlarged_Edition 3 0 false Mon May 28 05:56:38 -0700 2007 Mon May 28 05:56:38 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1029979