The Benthams in Russia, 1780 - 1791

by Ian R. Christie

This book describes the adventures in Russia of Samuel Bentham, the brother of the famous law-reformer, Jeremy Bentham. Shipbuilder, technical expert and inventor, his talents were employed for several years in serving the government of Catherine II, involving him in activities both in peace and war, and in extensive travel through the Russian Empire. The Russian court, war against the Turks, commercial enterprise in Siberia, are a few of the themes illuminated by his correspondence which forms the basis for this book.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Ian Ralph Christie was a British historian specialising in late 18th-century Britain. He spent most of his academic career at University College, London (UCL). In 1983 he gave the Ford Lectures at Oxford, on the reasons why Britain avoided revolution, subsequently published as Stress and Stability in Late Eighteenth Century Britain (Oxford University Press, 1984).