A Concise History of Russia (Cambridge Concise Histories)

Acknowledgments

The first chapters of this book were written at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, during a semester of residence with the support of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. Without the Carnegie Trust and Aberdeen University the beginning would have been much more difficult. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Paul Dukes, Robert Frost, Karin Friedrich, Jane Ohlmeyer, and Duncan Rice, in their different ways my hosts for an eventful time. Over the years my colleagues have kindly read and commented on many of the chapters, letting me know when I was on the right track and when I was not. For reading as well as discussion and bibliographical help, I thank Nikolaos Chrissidis, Laura Engelstein, Hilary Fink, Daniel Kevles, John MacKay, Edgar Melton, Bruce Menning, and Samuel Ramer. Many years of conversation about Russian culture with Vladimir Alexandrov, Katerina Clark, Nikolai Firtich, Harvey Goldblatt, Vladimir Golshtein, Andrea Graziosi, Charles Halperin, Moshe Lewin, Alexander Schenker, and Elizabeth Valkenier made many chapters much richer than I could have made them alone. Valerie Hansen and Frank Turner provided more help than they ever realized. As ever, Tatjana Lorkovic was invaluable.

I would also like to thank Tom Morehouse of the New England Air Museum, Kate Igoe of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Maria Zapata of the Haas Art Library of Yale University, David Thompson and Maria Singer of the Yale Center for British Art, and Kathryn James and E. C. Schroeder of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. Their courtesy and professionalism were invaluable in the search for suitable images.

Maija Jansson suffered through the long gestation and birth pains of the book, putting up with a distracted and often crabby author. She read the whole manuscript, some of it several times, and kept reminding me that it would come to an end, and so it did. To her I dedicate the result.