Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire

by Joshua A. Sanborn

Overview

Imperial Apocalypse describes the collapse of the Russian Empire during World War One. Drawing material from nine different archives and hundreds of published sources, this study ties together state failure, military violence, and decolonization in a single story. Joshua Sanborn excavates the individual lives of soldiers, doctors, nurses, politicians, and civilians caught up in the global conflict along the way, creating a narrative that is both humane and conceptually rich.

The volume opens by laying out the theoretical relationship between state failure, social collapse, and decolonization, and then moves chronologically from the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 through the fierce battles and massive human dislocations of 1914-16 to the final collapse of the empire in the midst of revolution in 1917-18. Imperial Apocalypse is the first major study which treats the demise of the Russian Empire as part of the twentieth-century phenomenon of modern decolonization, and provides a readable account of military activity and political change throughout this turbulent period of war and revolution. Sanborn argues that the sudden rise of groups seeking national self-determination in the borderlands of the empire was the consequence of state failure, not its cause. At the same time, he shows how the destruction of state institutions and the spread of violence from the front to the rear led to a collapse of traditional social bonds and the emergence of a new, more dangerous, and more militant political atmosphere.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198745686
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/20/2015
Series:	The Greater War
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	300
Sales rank:	899,603
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Joshua A. Sanborn is Professor of History at Lafayette College. He is the author of two previous books: Drafting the Russian Nation: Military Conscription, Total War, and Mass Politics, 1905-1925 and, with co-author Annette Timm, Gender, Sex, and the Shaping of Modern Europe: A History from the French Revolution to the Present Day. He lives in Easton, Pennsylvania, with his wife and two children.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Imperial Challenge
1: The Outbreak of War and the Transformation of the Borderlands
2: The Front Migrates
3: Remobilizing the Military: Combat Innovation, POWs, and Forced Labor
4: Remobilizing Society: Nurses, Doctors, and Social Control
5: Revolution
6: Decolonization
Conclusion: Imperial Apocalypse
Works Cited

Editorial Reviews

"Sanborn's command of his vast primary source base lends his narrative authority, his prose is unfailingly engaging, and his insights numerous. The many personal stories he tells of humble citizens caught up in this imperial 'apocalypse' provide moving illustrations of the broad processes he charts. Above all, no previous treatment of Russia's Great War and revolution makes so palpable the scale of chaos and misery endured by the population as war-induced violence spun out of anyone's control."—Journal of Modern History

"[Sanborn] succeeds brilliantly in integrating the military and social history of Russia's war effort....An outstanding contribution to the spate of books marking the centenary of the Great War."—CHOICE

"Sanborn's book is thus at once an everyday life history of the Russian Front, a gripping narrative of the key battles in which the Russian Empire participated, and a sophisticated conceptual argument about the stages of decolonization during the First World War."—The Russian Review

From the Publisher