The Revolution of Peter the Great

by James Cracraft

Overview

Many books chronicle the remarkable life of Russian tsar Peter the Great, but none analyze how his famous reforms actually took root and spread in Russia. In The Revolution of Peter the Great, James Cracraft offers a brilliant new interpretation of this pivotal era.

Linking together and transcending Peter's many reforms of state and society, Cracraft argues, was nothing less than a cultural revolution. New ways of dress, elite social behavior, navigation, architecture, and image-making emerged along with expansive vocabularies for labeling new objects and activities. Russians learned how to build and sail warships; train, supply, and command a modern army; operate a new-style bureaucracy; conduct diplomacy on a par with the other European states; apply modern science; and conceptualize the new governing system. Throughout, Peter remains the central figure, and Cracraft discusses the shaping events of the tsar's youth, his inner circle, the resistance his reforms engendered, and the founding of the city that would embody his vision--St. Petersburg, which celebrated its tercentenary in 2003.

By century's end, Russia was poised to play a critical role in the Napoleonic wars and boasted an elite culture about to burst into its golden age. In this eloquent book, Cracraft illuminates an astonishing transformation that had enormous consequences for both Russia and Europe, indeed the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674262812
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/15/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

James Cracraft is Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Table of Contents

Contents Preface 1 Peter and Company 2 Military and Naval Revolutions 3 Diplomatic and Bureaucratic Revolutions 4 Cultural Revolution 5 Revolution and Resistance 6 St. Petersburg Conclusion Chronology Notes Further Reading Index

What People are Saying About This

Cathy A. Frierson

Cracraft's interpretive history, grounded in his considerable expertise and reputation, is a welcome addition. His writing is engaging, free of jargon, and very accessible for both students and general readers with an interest in Russia.
— Cathy A. Frierson, University of New Hampshire

Cracraft's interpretive history, grounded in his considerable expertise and reputation, is a welcome addition. His writing is engaging, free of jargon, and very accessible for both students and general readers with an interest in Russia.

Editorial Reviews

Here, Cracraft (history, Univ. of Illinois) takes three previous books (The Petrine Revolution in Russian Imagery, The Petrine Revolution in Russian Architecture, and The Church Reform of Peter the Great) and creates a light and readable compilation. He argues that the Petrine Revolution was cultural, taking in architecture, imagery (including all facets of art), and verbal expression (including speaking and writing). Reform of the church hierarchy was paramount to the success of the cultural revolution and is an underlying theme throughout. Unfortunately, a major drawback is this work's being disconnected from the rest of Russian and contemporary European history. Those who know Russian history well enough to fill in the holes will not need this book, while those who read only this book will get a less than clear understanding of the Petrine Revolution. Thus, readers should also turn to Lindsey Hughes's Peter the Great: A Biography and/or the first three chapters of Stephen Lovell's Summerfolk: A History of the Dacha, 1710-2000 to get a better feel for Peter's life and times.-Harry Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. Syst., Iola Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Essential reading for those seeking the origin of Russia's ongoing friction between Westernizers and nationalists.

Booklist - Gilbert Taylor

This impressive little book [is] at once informative and intellectually interesting.

Choice - E. A. Cole

Cracraft's interpretive history, grounded in his considerable expertise and reputation, is a welcome addition. His writing is engaging, free of jargon, and very accessible for both students and general readers with an interest in Russia.

Cathy A. Frierson

Anglo-American historians have spent a great deal of effort on Peter and his reign in the last decades, the pioneer among them Cracraft himself. He has used his own work and that of his colleagues with thoroughness and tact to provide his own synthesis of the events and their meaning... Cracraft has succeeded in conveying the latest understanding of Peter's time, one that he himself has been so central in creating, in an elegant and highly readable form.

Cahiers du Monde Russe - Paul Bushkovitch

This book represents a distillation of James Cracraft's magisterial work The Petrine Revolution, the three volumes of which cover Russian architecture, imagery and verbal culture. It is firmly rooted in a lifetime of research and a formidable body of sources, but targets the general reader in the form of an accessible, lightly-footnoted interpretative history of the reforms of Russia's most important ruler, who reigned from 1682 to 1725.

Times Literary Supplement - Lindsey Hughes

Anglo-American historians have spent a great deal of effort on Peter and his reign in the last decades, the pioneer among them Cracraft himself. He has used his own work and that of his colleagues with thoroughness and tact to provide his own synthesis of the events and their meaning... Cracraft has succeeded in conveying the latest understanding of Peter's time, one that he himself has been so central in creating, in an elegant and highly readable form.
— Paul Bushkovitch

Cahiers du Monde Russe

This book represents a distillation of James Cracraft's magisterial work The Petrine Revolution, the three volumes of which cover Russian architecture, imagery and verbal culture. It is firmly rooted in a lifetime of research and a formidable body of sources, but targets the general reader in the form of an accessible, lightly-footnoted interpretative history of the reforms of Russia's most important ruler, who reigned from 1682 to 1725.
— Lindsey Hughes

Times Literary Supplement

This impressive little book [is] at once informative and intellectually interesting.
— E. A. Cole

Choice

Essential reading for those seeking the origin of Russia's ongoing friction between Westernizers and nationalists.
— Gilbert Taylor

Booklist