Why read The Elusive Empire?

Book cover of The Elusive Empire: Kazan and the Creation of Russia, 1552-1671

Book description

In 1552, Muscovite Russia conquered the city of Kazan on the Volga River. It was the first Orthodox Christian victory against Islam since the fall of Constantinople, a turning point that, over the next four years, would complete Moscow's control over the river. This conquest provided a direct trade route…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Elusive Empire as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Stefan B. Kirmse

Author

Why read a book on the early modern frontier?

You may think that all you need to know about Russia in the 1500s is Ivan the Terrible, but this gripping book will teach you otherwise.

It’ll ring familiar bells for those fascinated by the American West: it’s about an expanding state struggling to secure an unruly frontier. It features plenty of competition, even conflict, between local governors and distant lawmakers, between secular and church figures.

It also shows the suppression, but also systematic cooptation (nearly absent in the American case!), of an indigenous population.

As the title suggests, though, the…

From Stefan's list on how cultural diversity sustained the Russian Empire.