The Steppe and Its Empires
The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Yale University Press
Publishing:14th Jul '26
£20.00
This title is due to be published on 14th July, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A broad comparative study that highlights the importance of the Eurasian steppe and its impact on the arc of Russian history
Throughout its existence, Russia has been a hybrid empire shaped by both Europe and Asia. Focusing on the formation of the Russian state between the sixteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries, renowned historian Michael Khodarkovsky examines Russia’s structural similarities with its neighbors in Asia—the Ottoman, Persian, Mughal, and Chinese empires. While most historians have noted the transformations that brought Russia closer to modern European societies, the Russian empire’s shared characteristics with its non-European counterparts remain poorly understood.
Khodarkovsky reveals the critical role of the Eurasian steppe in the formation of the empires, whose military-social institutions and political culture were distinctly different from those of the West. Ultimately, he argues that Russia is best understood as a hybrid Eurasian empire whose steppe origins and fluid frontiers propelled its relentless expansion, producing a vastly diverse society with a blurred sense of national identity.
“In comparing neighboring Eurasian imperial polities, Khodarkovsky foregrounds their shared steppe nomadic heritage, making them less enigmatic and far more understandable. Anyone seeking to appreciate what Russia owes to this past and its continuing impact today must read this book.”—Thomas Barfield, author of Shadow Empires: An Alternative Imperial History
“Khodarkovsky’s stimulating comparative approach illuminates early modern Russian and Eurasian history. A brief, lucid, and entirely persuasive case for the importance of steppe pastoralists to Russia, China, Iran, and the Ottoman Empire.”—J. R. McNeill, Georgetown University
“This book does double duty very well. Students and general readers will find a clear, cogent, and concise introduction to the histories of the early modern empires bordering the steppe: Russian, Ottoman, Safavid and Qajar, Mughal and Qing. Scholars will find a provocative set of comparisons amongst the empires, which will offer new perspectives on histories we thought we knew, illuminated by comparisons of these states to each other, and with the states that were taking shape further west.”—Kenneth Pomeranz, author of The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy
ISBN: 9780300284386
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
224 pages