Russia Under the Old Regime (Penguin History)

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Summary: The beginning of study for students of Russian history
Review: This is the best place to begin a study of Russian history. Prof. Pipes introduces the student to the fundamental sources, the hows and whys about Russia's development through history. He sheds light on how 20th cnetury Russia would become what it is as a natural and understandable result. This book will make you a unique ringside viewer as Russsian continues to reform itself into, perhaps, a new version of what it was and always has been or a new historically free society as never before. The book clearly reveals the social trends and human behavior that long ago were profoundly and irremedially instilled in Russian character as everlasting behavior, which is still seen today. This book is almost a definition of how a people suffer deterministically their historical destiny due to the conditionaing of history based on the early days of this society. Like all great books, Pipes' study has insights and observations that can be applied to all cultures, societies, institutions and historical eras through all times, but most importantly in our own times. This is a great book about history as well as Russia.

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Summary: Indispensible Guide to Understanding Prerevolutionary Russia
Review: This work by Pipes is the place to start if you are interested in studying the history or literature of Pre-Revolutionary Russia. Pipes takes a traditionalist historical approach to discussing development of Russia from the Kievan Rus state through to the height of Imperial Tsarist Russia. His work is extremely illuminating, revealing the formation, evolution and interaction of the complex Russian social classes. He clearly sets forward what he believes to to be the unique factors which produced Russia's "differentness" and which contributed toward the production of the absolutist institution of the Tsarist autocracy. Pipes is particularly interesting on the subjects of serfdom (and why is was not a feudal construct) and the symbiotic, destructive relation between Russian society and topography. This is indeed the definitive work on Old Russia, and is required reading for an understanding of Tolstoy.

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Summary: An Excellent Treatment
Review: When I purchased this title in a used bookstore for two dollars, I was somewhat apprehensive about its scholarly quality, author biography not withstanding. Upon reading, however, I must say that I felt Pipes admirably illumined what is a very complex economic, social, and cultural subject. Specifically, his thesis concerns the manner in which the Russian state, under various formative influences, developed an essentially proprietary attitude towards land and subject alike. In Pipes' view this has been the primary determinant of all Russian history following Mongol domination. I myself make no pretenses to be an authority on the subject, but Pipes' use of evidence generally convinced me of the credibility of his claim. I would recommend this title to anyone interested in a general account of the pre-revolutionary Russian state apparatus.