Essential reading for those seeking the origin of Russia's ongoing friction between Westernizers and nationalists.
   --Gilbert Taylor, Booklist

This impressive little book [is] at once informative and intellectually interesting.
   --E. A. Cole, Choice

This book represents a distillation of James Cracraft's magisterial work The Petrine Revolution, the three volumes of which cover Russian architecture, imagery and verbal culture. It is firmly rooted in a lifetime of research and a formidable body of sources, but targets the general reader in the form of an accessible, lightly-footnoted interpretative history of the reforms of Russia's most important ruler, who reigned from 1682 to 1725.
   --Lindsey Hughes, Times Literary Supplement

Anglo-American historians have spent a great deal of effort on Peter and his reign in the last decades, the pioneer among them Cracraft himself. He has used his own work and that of his colleagues with thoroughness and tact to provide his own synthesis of the events and their meaning... Cracraft has succeeded in conveying the latest understanding of Peter's time, one that he himself has been so central in creating, in an elegant and highly readable form.
   --Paul Bushkovitch, Cahiers du Monde Russe

Cracraft's interpretive history, grounded in his considerable expertise and reputation, is a welcome addition. His writing is engaging, free of jargon, and very accessible for both students and general readers with an interest in Russia.
   --Cathy A. Frierson, University of New Hampshire

James Cracraft is Professor of History, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Read More by James Cracraft:

• The Petrine Revolution in Russian Culture