Ostrowski has produced a major reconceptualization not only of Russian history in the early modern period, but of world history between the mid-fifteenth and close of the eighteenth centuries. This ambitious book starts with a challenge to a fundamental assumption—that Peter the Great’s reign constituted a fundamental, “revolutionary” break in Russian history—and develops a vast and convincing model of early modern Russian history as a continuous, if uneven, process of borrowing, growth, adaptation, and innovation that both fits the patterns in world history and singles out Russia as a distinct cultural matrix. It is the kind of book only someone with vast experience in primary sources and the secondary literature in multiple fields and disciplines could write, and highlights something we all already knew—that Ostrowski is one of the great masters of the craft of history working in our midst.
— Russell E. Martin, Westminster College
Don Ostrowski’s new book offers us a sweeping examination of unresolved questions in early modern Russian history; it is at once erudite and eminently readable. He scrupulously evaluates conflicting interpretations, and presents them to the reader in the context, not just of Europe, but of similarities and differences across Afro-European civilizations. It's a pleasure to be challenged by such a buffet of ideas and interpretations, by such a provocative invitation to appraise, to question and to reconsider.
— Carol B. Stevens, Colgate University
Representing a lifetime of universal curiosity, of widespread reading and immense erudition, of theoretical daring with openness to other scholars’ approaches, and of well targeted, dogged source criticism, Professor Ostrowski has produced an original, thought-provoking, analytical history of late medieval and early modern Russia situated within the context of the rest of the Afro-Eurasia of 1450-1800 and of world history in general. As this remarkable achievement unfolds, with focus specifically on the ecology of territorial expansion, the landed ruling class, the military, the economy, secular institutions, church-state relations, and culture, and the oft exaggerated place of Peter the Great these developments, we observe a master teacher in action and are treated to unexpected ways of envisioning the past of Russia and other societies.
— David Goldfrank, Georgetown University
Don Ostrowski leaves few historiographical stones unturned in this deeply erudite and thought-provoking reassessment of how we conceptualize Russian history. As is true of any bold reinterpretation, some may take issue with certain aspects of Ostrowski’s sweeping history; but in the wake of this scholarly achievement, history departments and teachers of Russian history everywhere who regard Tsar Peter the Great as ushering in a new epoch of Russian history will be hard-pressed to justify that periodization.
— Erika Monahan, author of The Merchants of Siberia: Trade in Early Modern Eurasia