"If half a millennium of Russian history is to be distilled into a hundred pages of text, one has to have a strong thesis. Poe does... If those who disagree can offer a counterargument as compact, vigorous, and accessible as Poe's, the rest of us will greatly benefit."
Foreign Affairs "Condensing 1,400 years of history into 100 well-argued pages is a ... Read moreremarkable feat, one Poe accomplishes in terse but powerfully stated prose... Poe effectively commits to his chosen path of navigation and distills his observations and vast knowledge into a clear and well-presented theory. The author deserves credit for taking on the gutsy task of re-educating that he sees as a misinformed public with humility intact, an achievement that is a testament to the purity of his intent."
Gabriella Gershenson, San Francisco Chronicle "Students will find Poe an able provocateur of debate."
Booklist "This slim volume offers a sweeping yet cogent and highly stimulating reinterpretation of the entire course of Russian history from the time of the earliest settlers in Russian lands to the collapse of the Soviet Union. While intended for general readers, the author's views are firmly grounded in recent scholarship."
Choice "The task of compressing the whole history of Russia into a hundred easy-to-read pages would be a hard challenge for any serious historian, but the proposition of building and testing in the same space an innovative concept of what Russia is about might seem beyond possible. This neat book by Poe, which many readers would find difficult to put down before turning the last page, is the tangible proof that such a task can indeed by accomplished
and with astounding ease."
Pavel Baev, Journal of Peace Research "The thesis of this volume is that as late as the fifteenth century Russia was largely irrelevant to world history, that it became a noteworthy player in the sixteenth century, and that it remained so most of the time until 1991."
Richard Hellie, Journal of Modern History Show Less