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The specter of the Soviet Union lingers in Cuba, yet until now there has been no book-length work on the ways Cubans process their country’s relationship with the Soviet bloc. Dreaming in Russian at last brings into the light the reality that for nearly three decades, the Soviet Union subsidized the island economically, intervened in military matters, and exported distinct pedagogical and cultural models to Cuba. Drawing on interviews with Cuban artists and intellectuals, as well as treasures from cinematographic and bibliographic archives, Jacqueline Loss delivers the first book to show that Cuba remembers and retains many aspects of the Soviet era, far from shedding those cultural facets as relics of the Cold War.

Weaving together intriguing, seldom-seen images, Dreaming in Russian showcases the ways in which Cuba’s relationship to its Soviet benefactors lingered after the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. in 1991. Analyzing numerous literary texts and works of visual art, Loss also incorporates aspects of architecture, popular culture, the space race, and other strands to create a captivating new perspective on Cuban society. Among the luminaries featured are poet Reina María Rodríguez, writer Antonio José Ponte, visual artist Tonel, and novelist Wendy Guerra. A departure from traditional cultural history, Loss’s approach instead presents a kaleidoscopic series of facets, reflecting the hybrid nature of the self-images that emerged in the aftermath of the Soviet aegis. As speculations about Cuba’s future under Fidel Castro’s heir apparent continue, the portrait that emerges in Dreaming in Russian is both timely and mesmerizing.

In his pioneering new book Interpreting America John Ryder makes available for the first time to English-speaking readers Russian views of the full range of American philosophical thought: from seventeenth-century Puritanism through the colonial and revolutionary periods, nineteenth- century idealism, pragmatism, naturalism, and other twentieth-century movements and figures. Using his own accurate translations, he clearly reconstructs a chain of core ideas, emphasizes the most essential concepts of each writer's work, and gives a multidimensional reconstruction of the arguments of each author.

By taking mainstream Soviet philosophical commentators like Baskin, Bogomolov, Karimsky, Melvil, Pokrovsky, Sidorov, and Yulina seriously and letting them speak for themselves, Ryder shows not only what Soviet philosophers and scholars thought of American philosophy (and why they were so interested in the first place) but also the nuances of the internal disagreements among Soviet thinkers about what American philosophers were saying. He also reveals a strong continuity between contemporary, post-Soviet Russian philosophy and earlier Soviet work.

Perhaps no other book has ever explored in such a systematic manner the ways in which one philosophical system has regarded another. Ryder's revealing study of how others have viewed us helps to clarify the depth, richness, and complexity of our own American philosophical heritage.

Black's work challenges the standard perspective on the Russian period in Alaska as a time of unbridled exploitation of Native inhabitants and natural resources. Without glossing over the harsher aspects of the period, Black acknowledges the complexity of relations between Russians and Native peoples.

She chronicles the lives of ordinary men and women, the merchants and naval officers, laborers and clergy, who established Russian outposts in Alaska. These early colonists carried with them the Orthodox faith and the Russian language; their legacy endures in architecture and place names from Baranof Island to the Pribilofs.

This deluxe volume features fold-out maps and color illustrations of rare paintings and sketches from Russian, American, Japanese, and European sources, many have never before been published. An invaluable source for historians and anthropologists, this accessible volume brings to life a dynamic period in Russian and Alaskan history. A tribute to Black's life as a scholar and educator, Russians in Alaska will become a classic in the field.