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Leading writer Boris Kagarlitsky offers an ambitious account of 1000 years of Russian history. Encompassing all key periods in Russia's dramatic development, the book covers everything from early settlers, through medieval decline, Ivan the Terrible - the 'English Tsar', Peter the Great, the Crimean War and the rise of capitalism, the revolution, the Soviet period, finally ending with the return of capitalism after 1991.

Setting Russia within the context of the 'World System', as outlined by Wallerstein, this is a major work of historical Marxist theory that is set to become a future classic.

Stalin's death on March 6, 1953, reopened the debate within the Eisenhower administration over whether or not the United States should propose and actively promote the reunification of Germany at a summit conference. Written by an insider, this is the only published firsthand account of this foreign policy decision—a decision that illuminated the dilemmas of the Cold War at an important moment.

W. W. Rostow examines the origins of Eisenhower's "peace speech" of April 16, 1953, and of the National Security Council's debate on the German question between John Foster Dulles and presidential adviser C. D. Jackson. Jackson proposed immediate high-level diplomatic contact with the Soviet Union and the countries of Western Europe to discuss German reunification, as well as proposals for the general control of armaments and special security arrangements for Europe. Dulles, however, argued for a more reserved posture, which ruled out summitry and immediate negotiation with the Soviets. Dulles prevailed, but Eisenhower made his famous "peace speech."

In his concluding chapter, Rostow explores the question of whether or not anything was lost by this outcome. Was an opportunity for a united Germany forfeited when Eisenhower rejected Churchill's suggestion for a prompt summit meeting and backed Dulles against Jackson in the National Security Council meeting of March 11?

This is the third in a series of volumes by the author that probe the relationship between ideas and action in the making of major policy decisions. In this series, Rostow examines historic decision making from an insider's point of view while exploiting fully the rich documentary evidence.

The borders of Russian history, whether chronological, geographical, political or intellectual, have always been patrolled, have sometimes been evaded, but have never been invisible. This volume attempts to extend those borders in several ways. The articles stress continuity rather than ruptures and their organization emphasizes persistent factors over time, particularly across the 1917 divide. Geographical dimensions are explored not through conquest but through regional responses to the center: local variants of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century colonial policies in the Caucasus and Turkestan are complemented by Central Asian petitions for citizenship in the 1930s and Siberian healing in the 1990s. Ukrainian aspirations take a special focus, from Kyivan Rus’ to Ruthenian dreams.

Politically, of course, Marxist–Leninist ideology attempted to extend its own frontiers of Russian history. Several studies here attempt to assess the meaning of the Soviet period in terms of ideology, practices, processes and memory. It is fitting too that the now accepted boundaries of the Soviet era—the revolutionary decade and the first decade of transition—are subject to detailed attention and analysis. The intellectual borders of Russian and Soviet history, long policed from within and without, have been breached by the creative and wide-ranging use of newly accessible archival sources that form the basis for these articles. The sense of community exhibited by this collection, however, is not artificial nor is it wholly imagined. It derives from the honoree, whose scholarly life has exhibited the blurring of traditional boundaries, whether disciplinary, generational, or national, that is represented by the contributors to this volume.