History

NOW OUT OF PRINT   
The Prussian Army was disastrously defeated of Prussian Army at Jena-Auerstädt in 1806. In 1808, the remnants of the 227 infantry battalions formed eleven infantry regiments (IR), a Guard infantry regiment and six grenadier battalions. The regimental history, organisation, colours (Fahne) and uniforms are explored and lavishly illustrated in this first volume on the Prussian Army during the late Napoleonic Wars (1808-14).

The 180 plates include 44 colours (Fahne), 160 uniform depictions and 80 uniform/equipment details in colour. The 19th Century plates from the Bauer Plates, Herbert & Richard Knötel, Eckert & Monten, Krefeld, Neumann, Pietsch, Röchling and Wolf are supplemented by specially commissioned illustrations by Bob Marion and the author. In addition, there are 16 OOBs and 18 Tables.

The Cossacks earned an impressive reputation during the Napoleonic Wars. They were loathed for their "barbarism" and feared as fierce warriors. This book enlightens the reader about the fascinating history of these troops, the uniforms, armament and the Cossacks hosts. The second book called (2007) The Brazen Cross: Russian Opolchenie, Partizans and Freikorps during the Napoleonic Wars, completes the story on the Irregular forces of Russia.

Dr Alexander Mikerberidze said in his review on the Napoleon Series
"The book is lavishly illustrated - all 80 pages are printed on a gloss paper and the book contains 27 B&W illustrations and 11 color plates by Patrice Courcelle! [of Cossack Uniforms]"
"… Among the strongest features of the book are the numerous tables covering almost every aspect of the Cossack organization and armament."
"… It reads very easily and author's special drop-out boxes with quotes from various memoirs and little known facts only enhance the experience. …. This book is recommended to anyone interested in the Napoleonic Wars and especially to wargamers, who would certainly welcome its concise and informative style."

The Introduction describes swiftly the history of Cossacks and their initial conflict with the expanding Russian state. A small section reconciles the Cossack table of ranks of Cossack Khorunzhii, Uriadnik or Esaul with those of the regular army.

The Cossack military organization, tactics and involvement in the Napoleonic Wars. The 'Armament and Uniforms' section also discusses the much overlooked Cossack horse.

The 'Cossack Hosts' chapter deals with seven major Cossack hosts that existed [Black Sea Cossacks, Bug Cossacks, Don Cossacks, Orenburg Cossacks, Siberian Cossacks, Ukrainian Cossacks Ural Cossacks]. Each host is dealt in 2-3 paragraphs and the Don Host is covered in far more detail. In addition the minor Cossack hosts of the Danube Mouth, Ekaterinoslavl, Terek and Volga are discussed. The 'Regular Cossacks' provides information on establishment and military service of Leib Garde Cossack, Black Sea Leib-Garde Sotnia, Chuguev Cossack and Teptiar Cossacks. The 'Other Irregular Cavalry' details the overlooked Kalmyks, Bashkyrs, and Mesheriaks.

A detailed chronology which covers the Cossack history between late 14th century and 1917. Appendices 'A' and 'C' contain Cossack and general Russian military terms and explanation. Appendix 'B' serves as a reference list for various hosts and nations while Appendix 'D' deals with the uniform and armament terms.


Available from
Caliver Books in UK
www.caliverbooks.com

Reflecting on European colonialism in 1950 - at a time when discussions about what we now know as the European Union emerged in western Europe, Aimé Césaire wrote, . . . Europe is morally, spiritually indefensible. This idea is fairly commonplace in much of the post-colonial world and it has some purchase within certain academic and intellectual circles elsewhere. And yet, in the process of denouncing the widely noted presence of racism in Hungary, thirty-six leading Hungarian intellectuals have, in a recent public document, felt compelled to thank France, and through France, a generic, trans-historical notion of Europe, for what they saw as the latter's profound, longue-durée goodness. It is partly my concern for the economic hardship, political marginality, cultural discrimination, and social exclusion faced by the Romanies of eastern Europe and partly the precision with which the Letter articulates the topos of west European moral superiority - a central pattern of European identity discourse - that prompts me to raise the following initial questions: How is it possible to denounce racism by referring to Europe, especially western Europe, the main historic source and promoter of racism as we know it today? What purpose does the genre of the open letter serve and how does it function? How does the signatories' implicit project of geopolitical self-positioning relate to the theme of the West as an object to be emulated, long dominant in the modern history of east-central European ideas of emancipation?

This interpretive article relies on insights from three critical literatures -world-systems analysis, postcolonial studies and, to the extent of an extended simile, the economic sociology of flexible global production -to propose a geopolitical understanding of what the European Union (EU) is. The authors begin by interrogating the tendency within much of the current research and commentary on the EU to treat it as a state of sorts. They then outline some mechanisms -pertaining to its internal and external linkage structuresthat have enabled the EU to perform successfully in a geopolitical context where most of the main actors are states. Finally, drawing on critical insights from the sociology of subcontracted production and distributed organization, the authors suggest ways in which the EU, in its current form, might be thought of beyond the constraints of the current theoretical language of statehood.

This e-book is a collection of papers focussing on the discursive dimension of the 'eastern enlargement' of the European Union, relying on lessons from post-colonial scholarship, world-systems analysis and critical race studies. The empirical material comes from discourse of 'eastern enlargement' process in the late 1990s-early 2000s .

Currently we know quite a lot about the legal framework surrounding marriage in the middle ages. We know how the law developed, we know about the development of the church courts and about their application of the law. But we know very little about the way in which the law was received: how people established their marriages, how they tried to protect them or how they prepared for litigation. In this paper I shall present the evidence of eight cases which show different ways in which people either tried to safeguard against or prepare for marriage litigation in fourteenth-century York. In particular, I shall focus on different kinds of pre-court tribunals found in the material. This is an institution that is common enough in practice, but these tribunals took a multitude of forms ranging from the totally informal to formal meetings in the premises of the Church (though not with a clear mandate from the church). It will also become clear that although these pre-court meetings are common, they are not required and they appear to have affected only those cases that involved litigants who can be shown to have been (or arguably should be) under some form of tutelage.

This study illustrates diverse environmental themes in the history of the British empire. It was commissioned by OUP for its Companion Series to the Oxford History of the British Empire. A paperback edition was published in spring 2009.

Review:
Charles Dawson, Environment and Nature in New Zealand 14 (2) Dec. 2009:
http://environmentalhistory-au-nz.org/2009/12/review/


Other reviewers say (dust jacket of paperback edition):

"This is an impressive book both for its sweep across continents and themes and equally so for its lucid and flowing prose. The authors have woven together a complex tapestry of the currents that linked ecological change to the fortunes of the British Empire. It also brings the story up to the present and will be indispensable for historians, ecologists and lay persons alike."
Mahesh Rangarajan, Prof. in Modern Indian History, University of Delhi

"Environment and Empire is remarkably clear, cogent and up to the minute. It is an essential work for those who want to become acquainted with the great recent developments in environmental history. But it is also invaluable for comparative historians of the British Empire."
Prof Terence Ranger, University of Oxford

Other citations include:

"Excellent"
Dr Timothy Cooper, University of Exeter
'British environmental history', Making History (online, undated)



Chapter titles:
1. Introduction
2. Environmental Aspects of the Atlantic Slave Trade and Caribbean Plantations
3. The Fur Trade in Canada
4. Hunting, Wildlife, and Imperialism in Southern Africa
5. Imperial Travellers
6. Sheep, Pastures, and Demography in Australia
7. Forests and Forestry in India
8. Water, Irrigation, and Agrarian Society in India and Egypt
9. Colonial Cities: Environment, Space, and Race
10. Plague and Urban Environments
11 Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis in East and Central Africa
12. Imperial Scientists, Ecology, and Conservation
13. Empire and the Visual Representation of Nature
14. Rubber and the Environment in Malaysia
15. Oil Extraction in the Middle East: The Kuwait Experience
16. Resistance to Colonial Conservation and Resource Management
17. National Parks and the Growth of Tourism
18. The Post-Imperial Urban Environment
19. Reassertion of Indigenous Environmental Rights and Knowledge

The paper describes the possibilities for cultural heritage to generate positive societal effects. Based on a presentation of the regional museum organisation Västarvet of West Sweden, and its focus on industrial heritage as represented by Forsvik Works, a case study is presented.
The case concerns a former paper mill – Fengersfors Works which were closed down in the 1970s – and its possibilities as instrument for regional development.
Two perspectives on what Fengersfors Works represent in industrial history are judged to be of high interest, namely the possibility to represent industrial paper production from late 19th century to late 20th century, and secondly the power production in early 20th century in industrial plants. The objective for the professional heritage sector is to develop these perspectives, together with the owners, into a concept of working order which comprises the technology as such but also the industrial site as a place for work, development, economy and societal life.
Thus the necessity for the heritage sector to develop abilities to recognise the cultural heritage both as a document for re-active historic interpreting and story telling, as well as an active instrument for societal development based on its intrinsic qualities, is stressed in concluding the paper.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 82.35.234.71 on Sat, 15 Aug 2015 10:16:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AD UNGUEM Armand J. D'Angour vos, o Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod non multa dies et multa litura coercuit atque praesectum deciens non castigavit ad unguem. (Horace Ars Poetica 291-94) You, O Sons of Pompilius, condemn that poem which many a day and many an erasure has not pruned and whittled down and chastened tenfold to the nail. "Censure a poem," Brink paraphrases, "which has not been reduced to right proportions and (when it has been reduced) has not been tested to a nicety."1 Tested, that is, by its author, whose action Horace has been thought here to be likening to the way a sculptor examines a com? pleted work for flaws. Translations of the final line commonly expand the phrase ad unguem to specify such a connotation, often taking prae? sectum to qualify unguem as in "to meet the test of the well-pared nail."2 But Brink has advanced convincing arguments against the supposition that praesectum qualifies unguem? Moreover, praesectum is positioned for emphasis and followed directly by deciens: the words must elaborate the process described by the foregoing coercuit.4 Prae-1 Brink 1971, 324-25. 2Rudd 1979, 198. Fairclough (1929, 475) similarly renders "to the test of the closecut nail." adduces Plautus' use of praesegmina for "nail clippings" to suggest that praesectum "goes naturally with unguem" 3Brink 1971, 323-24: "It makes sense neither to the stonemason nor to the Latinist ... the mason needs [his nails] for testing a true join, if he tests it that way ... ad unguem, 'to a nicety,' accepts an attribute as uncommonly as in annos." Some manuscripts have perfectum instead of praesectum: while the lectio difficilior is rightly retained by editors, perfectum would clearly pick up earlier carmen rather than look forward to unguem. 4Deciens might be taken with praesectum or castigavit. However, terminal atque in Horatian hexameters tends to connect the first word of the following line closely to the preceding verse rather than initiating a completely new clause, as in

It has long been postulated that there were two ways to philosophize, each possibility being represented by one of the two preeminent philosophers of our century. Heidegger, for his part, philosophized from the standpoint of extreme erudition, giving the impression of having read and synthesized all of the works of western thought, while Wittgenstein made profundity out of ignorance, rarely acknowledging any acquaintance with the tradition of which he was part. By showing the extent to which Wittgenstein's early philosophy is indebted to his critical engagement with Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation, Genius & Talent suggests, instead, that all philosophy confronts its own history. As such, this is a study not just in the value and necessity of historically contextualized interpretation, but also in the origins and nature of philosophical creativity: regardless of appearances to the contrary, not even genius creates ex nihilo.

This paper describes several incunabular assumptions that impose upon early digital libraries the limitations drawn from print, and argues for a design strategy aimed at providing customization and personalization services that go beyond the limiting models of print distribution, based on services and experiments developed for the Greco-Roman collections in the Perseus Digital Library. Three features fundamentally characterize a successful digital library design: finer granularity of collection objects, automated processes, and decentralized community contributions.

Cet ouvrage présente une approche originale des textes épigraphiques évoquant les guérisons miraculeuses en Grèce antique. L'union des connaissances d'une philologue spécialiste du grec ancien et d'un médecin paléopathologiste permet de mieux saisir la richesse de ce corpus. Chaque texte est suivi d'une traduction moderne et de commentaires lexicaux et médicaux qui nous plongent directement au cœur des pratiques curatives dans les grands sanctuaires de Grèce comme Epidaure ou Lébèna.
Thérapies divines ou humaines ? Grâce à un diagnostic rétrospectif fiable et pondéré des maladies décrites et grâce à l'étude des soins apportés aux patients qui venaient s'endormir dans les temples d'Asclépios, les auteurs démystifient souvent l'idée de guérisons spontanées par la seule intervention du dieu. Leurs recherches réfutent également les anciennes théories qui faisaient passer tous les malades pour des hypocondriaques ou des « hystériques ».
Intégrant systématiquement les données paléopathologiques les plus récentes, et en les comparant aux données épigraphiques et aux descriptions cliniques fournies par ce choix de textes, cet ensemble permet de reconstituer un tableau relativement fourni et objectif de l’état sanitaire de ces populations mais également des pratiques médico-chirurgicales contemporaines, dans une perspective prudemment synchronique.
Du IVe siècle av. J.-C. au IIIe siècle de notre ère, ce parcours dans des sources textuelles parfois peu exploitées jusqu'à présent est une petite contribution à la compréhension de l'histoire de la médecine, de la religion et de la société.

The speed of modern computers can be increased by organizing computations so that memory access patterns correspond more closely to the memory cache-loading patterns implemented in the hardware. Rearranging code and data are each possible. Here we concentrate on automatic rearrangement of data, and examine the belief, common in some technical circles, that modern generational copying garbage collectors (GC) will improve data caching by relocating and compressing data, as a matter of normal processing. Since GC routines tend to be very well-tested and quite robust, if this belief can be confirmed by benchmarks, a GC could be a "free" way of reliably speeding up programs in practice.

This article provides a snapshot of immersive virtual reality (IVR) use for scientific visualization, in the context of the evolution of computing in general and of user interfaces in particular. The main thesis of this article is that IVR has great potential for dealing with the serious problem of exponentially growing scientific datasets. Our ability to produce large datasets both through numerical simulation and through data acquisition via sensors is outrunning our ability to make sense of those datasets. While our idea of ''large'' datasets used to be measured in hundreds of gigabytes, based at least in part on what we could easily store, manipulate, and display in real time, today's science and engineering are producing terabytes and soon even petabytes, both from observation via sensors and as output from numerical simulation. Clearly, visualization by itself will not solve the problem of understanding truly large datasets that would overwhelm both display capacity and the human visual system. We advocate a human-computer partnership that draws on the strengths of each partner, with algorithmic culling and feature-detection used to identify the small fraction of the data that should be visually examined in detail by the human. Our hope is that IVR will be a potent tool to let humans ''see'' patterns, trends, and anomalies in their data well beyond what they can do with conventional 3D desktop displays. r

Examines mundillo, traditional Puerto Rican lacemaking as part of Puerto Rican material culture and considers how it defines gender through its making and use. There is a question of origins yet it has no one point of origin nor single trajectory of development. Based on fieldwork, collections study and oral history, this is part of a larger project on mundillo.

We explore the behavior and reform of the House committee system between the 15th and 17th Congresses, a period of legislative chaos. In examining how the House dealt with the Missouri controversy in the 15th and 16th Congresses, we illustrate how select committees created to assist in drafting legislation could be virtually powerless to influence the agenda in their domains. Our second case, of army retrenchment in the 16th Congress, illustrates how select committees could influence policy outcomes during this era, if they possessed gate keeping powers. Our last section examines the passage of committee reforms in the 17th Congress, arguing that the reforms were a response, at least in part, to the underlying legislative chaos illustrated in our two cases.

25 Focus Asien Nr. 27 "Osttimor -vier Jahre Unabhängigkeit" langfristig auch erhebliche Problempotenziale. Einerseits können die für demokratische Verfassungsstaaten unabdingbaren Oppositionsfunktionen nur unzulänglich erfüllt werden, insbesondere die Regierungskontrollfunktion und die Funktion der Bereitstellung alternativer Politikentwürfe und Personen ist in einer Konstellation wie dem derzeitigen osttimoresischen Parteiensystem nur schwer umsetzbar. Und andererseits fehlen diese Funktionen nicht nur, sie können auch gar nicht eingeübt werden. Das Einüben sowohl von Regierungsverantwortung als auch von Oppositionsarbeit ist aber ganz wesentlich für den Aufbau funktionsfähiger demokratischer Praxis. Bilanz und Ausblick Wie erfolgreich ist nun der Aufbau staatlicher Institutionen in Osttimor? Wie stabil und verlässlich werden von den noch jungen Regierungsorganen jene Leistungen erbracht, welche von einem funktionsfähigen politischen System erwartet werden? Trotz beider oben genannter Schwächen und Gefahrenzonen des politischen Systems bleibt Osttimor ein Erfolgsbeispiel für den Aufbau von Staatlichkeit. Der Rückgang der Gewalt, die trotz der genannten Probleme große Akzeptanz des neuen Staates, der Beginn der Bewältigung der sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Probleme und das im Vergleich zu anderen Staaten Südostasiens verhältnismäßig geringe Ausmaß an Korruption und Amtsmissbrauch zeigen, dass Staatsaufbau mit internationaler Unterstützung auch unter sehr schwierigen Ausgangsbedingungen funktionieren kann. Die eigentlichen Bewährungsproben stehen dem jungen Staat aber noch bevor. Erstens muss sich die Stabilität der politischen Institutionen des Landes zunächst in der ersten regulären Wahl zur Nationalversammlung im Jahr 2007 bewähren. Zweitens bleibt abzuwarten, wie Osttimor die Zeit nach Xanana Gusmão bewältigt und welche anderen integrierenden Persönlichkeiten oder Mechanismen die wichtige integrative Kraft entfalten können, die derzeit vom Präsidenten ausgeübt wird. Drittens muss sich die gesellschaftliche Verankerung von Interessensgruppen und Medien in Osttimor noch weiter festigen, damit den staatlichen Institutionen auch ein nachhaltiges und verlässliches zivilgesellschaftliches Engagement gegenübersteht. Und viertens kann eine junge Demokratie eigentlich erst dann als konsolidiert gelten, wenn sie zumindest einen echten Regierungswechsel in friedlicher Weise vollzogen hat. Dieser steht dem Land noch bevor. Jakob Lempp ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am

This paper focuses on two conflations which frequently appear within the philosophy of history and other fields concerned with action explanation. The first of these, which I call the Conflating View of Reasons, states that the reasons for which we perform actions are reasons why (those events which are) our actions occur. The second, more general conflation, which I call the Conflating View of Action Explanation, states that whatever explains why an agent performed a certain action explains why (that event which was) her action occurred. Both conflations ignore the fact that there are at least two distinct objects that legitimately qualify as objects of action explanation2. As Jennifer Hornsby (1993) has previous suggested, one thing we might wish to explain is ‘why did A do what she did?’ another is, ‘why did the event of her doing it occur?’

I shall argue that when these two views are combined they give rise to a futile debate about explanation in the philosophies of history and the social sciences, and to an almost identical debate in moral psychology and the philosophy of mind. In so doing, I shall also examine a proposed distinction between explaining a phenomenon, and rendering it intelligible. I conclude by distinguishing between four different objects of historical understanding, each of which is to be understood in the light of the aforementioned distinctions between event and thing done, and explanation and intelligibility.

'The Russian Empire and the Steppe. An Exchange of Views'

Two contrasting reviews of Willard Sunderland, Taming the Wild Field:Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe (Ithaca, NY & London: Cornell University Press, 2004), by Pavel Rykin & Igor Grachev, and by Alexander Morrison.

This article argues that Russia's Empire in Central Asia is best understood in comparison with the other Western Colonial Empires of the nineteenth century, specifically Britain's Indian Empire. It examines nineteenth-century Russian travellers' accounts of British India, and the `Asianist' tradition which argued that Russians had a greater affinity with Asian peoples than other Europeans, and that the nature of their empire was consequently different. In the case of Turkestan it rejects this assumption on the basis of research in Russian and Uzbek archives, and of the differing views expressed in books and journals by Russian military officers and imperial administrators of the day.

"There is a persistent myth to the effect that Norway is and always has been the odd one out in the sphere of Nordic furniture design. But irrespective of what we ourselves might think, it is a fact that when it comes to international fame, Norwegian pioneers such as Alf Sture from Hiort & Østlyngen lose out as against the Dane Arne Jacobsen of Fritz Hansens Eftf., the Swede Bruno Mathsson from Dux / Bruno Mathsson International, and the Finn Alvar Aalto from Artek.
A trivial, but nevertheless striking illustration of this is to be found by leafing through the ”furniture bible”, 1000 chairs by Charlotte & Peter Field. Represented in it are 21 Danish designers, two Swedes, four Finns, but no Norwegians.  Another example is the website www.scandinaviandesign.com, which in its review of design-intensive undertakings in the North has not included a single Norwegian producer.
However, against the background of such observations, can we really authenticate the myth of Norway’s junior status? Are internationally famous designers, products and producers the only valid parameters when evaluating a nation’s achievements in the field of design? Starting out from this kind of assertion, we risk creating a skewed, perhaps also slightly erroneous impression of the situation. Is it not at least as interesting to study products that have found their way into a host of homes as it is to keep up with what has been bought by museums? On the basis of such a hypothesis we are well equipped to dismiss old myths relating to design history.
Products, producers and designers most often achieve fame in the world of design by appealing to critics, design magazines and museums’ purchasing committees. But design is about much more than elite design. What can be termed mainstream design usually tells us more about real social, cultural and aesthetic trends in the population at large. By applying such a cultural historical approach, the time is perhaps ripe for a revaluation of a few ”truths” concerning Norwegian design.
"

"This article addresses an epistemological problem best described
as the insufficiently scrutinising use of ism-suffixed terms
as categorising and analytic tools in the fields of architectural and
design history. It seeks to explore the enigmatic nature of isms
and proposes methodological frameworks for their reading
and interpretation."

One of my most-cited and most requested articles, this work, published in _The Pomegranate_ , traces the origins and development of the legend of Aradia, one of the most important figures in the modern Witchcraft revival.  Before being included by Charles Leland in his eponymous book, Aradia was associated with enchantment and night-time flights in medieval European folklore.

The purpose of this volume is to bring together a set of chapters that investigate the communication practices through which Chinese societies are creating their civil foundations for the next millennium. Civic Discourse, Civil Society, and Chinese Communities, reflects both the emphasis on analyzing specific discursive practices in particular Chinese societies and on understanding the role that discursive practices play in the development of civil society more generally.

AppleScript is a scripting language and environment for the Mac OS. Originally conceived in 1989, AppleScript allows end-users to automate complex tasks and customize Mac OS applications. To automate tasks, AppleScript provides standard programming language features (control flow, variables, data structures) and sends Apple Events to invoke application behavior. Apple Events is a variation on standard remote procedure calls in which messages can identify their arguments by queries that are interpreted by the remote application. This approach avoids the need for remote object pointers or proxies and reduces the number of communication round-trips, which are expensive in high-latency environments like the early Macintosh OS. To customize an application that uses Apple-Script's Open Scripting Architecture, users attach scripts to application objects; these scripts can then intercept and modify application behavior.

This note contains information about job search for DPhil graduates. The first -and longest --part is devoted to the American job market, a large organized clearing house that meets once a year. The second part covers the European market. The emphasis is on academic and research jobs, although useful information is also provided on nonresearch jobs in the internet section. A list of Oxford resources appears at the end, as well as references to journal articles on the job market for economists and the ranking of various departments.

I wrote this article in response to a polemical debate between Niall Ferguson and Priyamvada Gopal in the pages of the Guardian in 2006. I had hoped that it might be published in the comment pages, but no such luck... It deals with the unjustified assumptions which parties on both sides of this debate make about the omnipotence of Imperial Rule.

This paper develops a critical international political economy analysis of the processes that we commonly understand as globalization and their application in the development of Poland's transition from state socialism. It does so by tracing the rise of social forces shaped by the restructuring of social relations of production and the form of state in Poland. The paper argues that a series of important social shifts occurred to move Poland towards a neoliberal strategy of capitalist accumulation with the failure of state-socialism as a development project and the uncoupling of the social basis of Communist Party hegemony. It is social forces most intimately associated with transnational capital, irrespective of their party or social position, that are most successful in the struggle over competing reform strategies. These strategies eventually coalesce through material and ideological changes associated with a new openness to transnationalized circuits of capital.

"Russian Rule in Samarkand uses a comparative approach to examine the structures, personnel, and ideologies of Russian imperialism in Turkestan, taking Samarkand and the surrounding region as a case-study. The creation of a colonial administration in Central Asia presented Russia with similar problems to those faced by the British in India, but different approaches to governance meant that the two regimes often stood in stark contrast to one another.

Opening with the background to the political situation in Central Asia and a narrative of Russian conquest itself, the book moves on to analyse official attitudes to Islam and to pre-colonial elites, and the earliest attempts to establish a functioning system of revenue collection. Uncovering the religious and ethnic composition of the military bureaucracy, and the social background, education and training of its personnel, Alexander Morrison assesses the competence of these officers vis-à-vis their Anglo-Indian counterparts. Subsequent chapters look at the role of the so-called 'native administration' in governing the countryside and collecting taxes, the attempt to administer the complex systems of irrigation leading from the Zarafshan and Syr-Darya rivers, and the nature and functions of the Islamic judiciary under colonial rule.

Based on extensive archival research in Russia, India, and Uzbekistan, and containing much rare source material translated from the original Russian, Russian Rule in Samarkand will be of interest to all those interested in the history of the Russian Empire and European Imperialism more generally.


"Evocative [and] thoughtful book." - Jeff Sahadeo, Steppe

"Morrison...has drawn on much additional source material, including some from the Russian and Uzbekistan archives, and has contrived an interesting and detailed picture of features of Russian administration, notably its organisation and personnel, its relations with Islam and its work in the crucial area of irrigation." - M.E Yapp, Times Literary Supplement

"Morrison has achieved a pioneering work. Neither in Russian nor in Western research is there another study which gives such a full and detailed view of Tsarist ruling practices in Central Asia. But even beyond the Tsarist Empire, this book is of significance for its impressive illustration of the limits to which Colonial Rule can be subject." - Ulrich Hofmeister, H-Soz-u-Kult

"This is an engaging and elegantly written examination of Russian rule in Central Asia post-1865...an impressive study." - Nick Walmsley, Central Asian Survey

"Pioneering... This is truly ground-breaking work and provides our understanding of tsarist Central Asia with a new level of detail." - Adeeb Khalid, Slavic Review

"The depth of research, the detailing of complexities of critical fields of colonial control such as administration, irrigation and law, and its comparative approach make this work a significant contribution to the history of Tsarist Central Asia." - Jeff Sahadeo, English Historical Review

"Morrison's work is probably the best account of the Russian administration in the settled parts of Turkestan; it is at least the best I have read so far, because he discusses the general lines of the Russian strategy in some detail. The comparative perspective also helps to explain many specifics of the Russian situation." - Jürgen Paul, Central Asian Survey

"Morrison's work shows an intimate familiarity with British literature on empire, and he has done important archival work in both India and Central Asia. The result is an innovative study on imperial governance concerning aspects as varied as administration, irrigation, law, and religion." - Jeff Sahadeo, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History

"A wonderful book, one which significantly advances our knowledge of tsarist Central Asia, European colonial methods of rule in the late nineteenth century, and the native response... a richly interwoven quilt of a study, where delight is offered as much by the care taken over individual details as in the overall sweep of the whole." - A. G. Marshall, The Slavonic & East European Review

"This work constitutes, through its rigour, its degree of erudition and its novelty, a contribution of high quality to the imperial history of Central Asia which has been developing in recent years." Isabelle Ohayon, Cahiers du Monde Russe

"Alexander Morrison has managed to write a multifaceted account, which impresses both through the strength of his philological expertise and through his solid mastery of the sources." Christian Teichmann, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas"