The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretative History of Russian Culture (Vintage) - James H. Billington Review & Synopsis

 Synopsis

"A sweeping, intricate description of Russian cultural history, spanning the pre-Romanov era through six centuries to the reign of Joseph Stalin. Flowing with ease through time and topic - from art to music, literature, philosophy, mythology and more - the book provides readers with an alluring portrayal of Russia's proud heritage. Its impressive scope and lasting insights have made it a foundational text in Russian studies. In fact, it was this book, more than any other, that captured my imagination and propelled me toward the study of Russia and the Soviet Union." --Condoleezza Rice, The New York Times

"A rich and readable introduction to the whole sweep of Russian cultural and intellectual history from Kievan times to the post-Khruschev era." - Library Journal

Includes Illustrations, references, index.

Review

'...I cannot begin to touch on the riches of this book. It is packed with detail without being dry, vivid without being 'colorful, ' and wide-ranging without crying up special theories. This is, moreover, a cultural history in which is implicit the knowledge that ideas do not follow simply from other ideas, that cultural history interprets and modifies political and economic history but rides on their currents and is swayed by their events."A rich and readable introduction to the whole sweep of Russian cultural and intellectual history from Kievan times to the post-Khruschev era." - Library Journal. Illustrations, references, index.

The Icon and Axe

"A sweeping, intricate description of Russian cultural history, spanning the pre-Romanov era through six centuries to the reign of Joseph Stalin. Flowing with ease through time and topic — from art to music, literature, philosophy, mythology and more — the book provides readers with an alluring portrayal of Russia’s proud heritage. Its impressive scope and lasting insights have made it a foundational text in Russian studies. In fact, it was this book, more than any other, that captured my imagination and propelled me toward the study of Russia and the Soviet Union." --Condoleezza Rice, The New York Times "A rich and readable introduction to the whole sweep of Russian cultural and intellectual history from Kievan times to the post-Khruschev era." - Library Journal Includes Illustrations, references, index.

Its impressive scope and lasting insights have made it a foundational text in Russian studies. In fact, it was this book, more than any other, that captured my imagination and propelled me toward the study of Russia and the Soviet Union."

The Icon and the Axe

A rich and readable introduction to the whole sweep of Russian cultural and intellectual history from Kievan times to the post-Khruschev era."

The Librarians of Congress

For over 200 years the Library of Congress has served as our national library. Since its establishment in 1800, thirteen librarians have served as the institution's head librarian. Sadly, little is known about most of them. The Librarians of Congress is the first book to contain the biographies of all these librarians. Beginning with a brief history of the Library of Congress, the book then contains short biographies of each of the thirteen Librarians of Congress, beginning with John J. Beckley and ending with James H. Billington.

 James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Press, 1970), vii. 7. ... James H . Billington , “Force and Counterforce in Eastern Europe,” Foreign Affairs 47, no."

Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism

This volume brings together 15 articles divided into four sections on the role of nationalism in transitions to democracy, the application of theory to country case studies, and the role played by history and myths in the forging of national identities and nationalisms. The book develops new theories and frameworks through engaging with leading scholars of nationalism: Hans Kohn's propositions are discussed in relation to the applicability of the term 'civic' (with no ethno-cultural connotations) to liberal democracies, Rogers Brubaker over the usefulness of dividing European states into 'civic' and 'nationalizing' states when the former have historically been 'nationalizers', Will Kymlicka on the applicability of multiculturalism to post-communist states, and Paul Robert Magocsi on the lack of data to support claims of revivals by national minorities in Ukraine. The book also engages with 'transitology' over the usefulness of comparative studies of transitions in regions that underwent only political reforms, and those that had 'quadruple transitions', implying simultaneous democratic and market reforms, as well as state and nation building. A comparative study of Serbian and Russian diasporas focuses on why ethnic Serbs and Russians living outside Serbia and Russia reacted differently to the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the USSR. The book dissects the writing of Russian and Soviet history that continues to utilize imperial frameworks of history, analyzes the re-writing of Ukrainian history within post-colonial theories, and discusses the forging of Ukraine's identity within theories of 'Others' as central to the shaping of identities. The collection of articles proposes a new framework for the study of Ukrainian nationalism as a broader research phenomenon by placing nationalism in Ukraine within a theoretical and comparative perspective.

Summner devotes some space in his Survey of Russian History to the 'Ukrainian Question' which discusses the ... 45 James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1970)."

Russia and America: A Philosophical Comparison

In this year of bicentennial celebration, there will no doubt take place several cultural analyses of the American tradition. This is only as it should be, for without an extensive, broad-based inquiry into where we have come from, we shall surely not foresee where we might go. Nonetheless, most cultural analyses of the American context suffer from a common fault - the lack of a different context to use for purposes of comparison. True, American values and ideals were partly inherited from the European tradition. But that tradition is in many ways an inadequate mode of comparison. Without going too far afield, let us note two points: first, European culture was the proud inheritor of the Renaissance tradition, and, going back still further, of classical culture; second, the European countries are compact. Their land masses are such that the notion of "frontier" simply would not have arisen in the same way as it did in America. On the other side of the globe, however, there does exist a country capable of serving as a suitable mirror. We speak, of course, of Russia. That country also came relatively late onto the cultural horizon, and was not privy to the Renaissance tradition. Furthermore, her land mass is such as to be "experi mentally infmite" in character - not unlike the American frontier. It is hoped that much can be leamed about the present cultural context by com paring the two countries in their youthful stages.

23 24 Nicholas Berdyaev , The Russian Idea ( Boston : Beacon , 1962 ) , p . 2 . James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture ( New York : Vintage , 1970 ) , p . 6 . 25 For further elucidation ..."

Food Culture in Russia and Central Asia

The diversity of food cultures within the former Soviet Union, with more than 100 distinct nationalities, is overwhelming, but Food Culture in Russia and Central Asia brilliantly distills the main elements of contemporary cuisine and food-related customs for students and foodies.

 James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 148. 54. Voronin, lstoriya kul'tury drevnei rusi, 269. 55. Carolyn Johnston Pouncy, ed. and trans., The Domostroi: ..."

When Art Makes News

 James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture ( New York : Vintage Books edition , 1970 ) , viii . 9. Fragments of this narrative have been written by different researchers over the years ."

Contested Russian Tourism

This literary, cultural history examines imperial Russian tourism’s entanglement in the vexed issue of cosmopolitanism understood as receptiveness to the foreign and pitted against provinciality and nationalist anxiety about the allure and the influence of Western Europe. The study maps the shift from Enlightenment cosmopolitanism to Byronic cosmopolitanism with special attention to the art pilgrimage abroad. For typically middle-class Russians daunted by the cultural riches of the West, vacationing in the North Caucasus, Georgia, and the Crimea afforded the compensatory opportunity to play colonizer kings and queens in “Asia.” Drawing on Anna Karenina and other literary classics, travel writing, journalism, and guidebooks, the investigation engages with current debates in cosmopolitan studies, including the fuzzy paradigm of “colonial cosmopolitanism.”

Other representative discussions of anti-bourgeois sentiment are James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 233, 327,447–48; Derek Offord, Journeys to a ..."

The Art of Evolution

A timely and stimulating collection of essays about the impact of Darwin's ideas on visual culture

 James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture ( New York : Vintage , 1970 ) , 490 ; Igor Golomstock , Totalitarian Art in the Soviet Union , the Third Reich , Fascist Italy and the People's ..."

Dostoevsky and the Christian Tradition

Dostoevsky is one of Russia's greatest novelists and a major influence in modern debates about religion, both in Russia and the West. This collection brings together Western and Russian perspectives on the issues raised by the religious element in his work. The aim of this collection is not to abstract Dostoevsky's religious 'teaching' from his literary works, but to explore the interaction between his Christian faith and his writing. The essays cover such topics as temptation, grace and law, Dostoevsky's use of the gospels and hagiography, Trinitarianism, and the Russian tradition of the veneration of icons, as well as reading aloud, and dialogism. In addition to an exploration of the impact of the Christian tradition on Dostoevsky's major novels, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov, there are also discussions of lesser-known works such as The Landlady and A Little Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree.

See James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture ( New York , 1970 ) ... 26 In a note to this passage in the Academy of Sciences edition it is said that Makar was not an Old Believer and that ..."

The Sexual Revolution in Russia

 James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History oj Russian Culture (New York: Vintage , 1970), p. 349. 16. Ibid., p. 350. This style of life was imposed on women too. Irrespective of her own individual temperament, ..."

Crisis in the Caucasus: Russia, Georgia and the West

This collection of essays by a series of academic specialists examines the crisis stemming from the Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008 from a range of standpoints. The chapters probe the geopolitical and strategic dimensions of the crisis as well as the longer term military and diplomatic implications for Europe and the central Asian region. The collection will be of major importance to students of Russia and Eastern Europe, military analysts as well as journalists and politicians concerned with what some observers have termed a "new cold war" between Russia and the West. This book was published as a special issue of Small Wars and Insurgencies.

... Institute for International Economics, 2007. Berlin, Isaiah. The Proper Study of Mankind. London: Pimlico, 1998. Billington , James H . The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture . New York: Vintage Books, 1970."

The History of Russia

Discusses the political and economic aspects of each period as well as the social and cultural milieu, and includes a timeline, brief biographical notes on key players, and a bibliographic essay.

 James H . Billington , now Librarian of Congress , produced a magisterial study in The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture ( New York : Vintage , 1970 ) . The book is richly researched and beautifully written ..."

Inside the Soviet Alternate Universe

"Reappraises the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union based on the author's 35-year career as a specialist in Soviet and post-Soviet affairs. Explores the psychological universe of Soviet rulers to clarify the nature of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms"--Provided by publisher.

 Billington , James H . The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture . New York: Vintage , 1970. Blacker, Coit D. Hostage to Revolution: Gorbachev and Soviet Security Policy, 1985–1991. New York: Council on Foreign ..."

When Emancipation Came

Linked by declarations of emancipation within the same five-year period, two countries shared human rights issues on two distinct continents. In this book, readers will find a case-study comparison of the emancipation of Russian serfs on the Yazykovo Selo estate and American slaves at the Palmyra Plantation. Although state policies and reactions may not follow the same paths in each area, there were striking thematic parallels. These findings add to our understanding of what happens throughout an emancipation process in which the state grants freedom, and therefore speaks to the universality of the human experience. Despite the political and economic differences between the two countries, as well as their geographic and cultural distances, this book re-conceptualizes emancipation and its aftermath in each country: from a history that treats each as a separate, self-contained story to one with a unified, global framework.

2006) in its entirety; James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), pp. 313–315; Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime, p. 266; Irina Paperno, “The Liberation of the ..."

Historical and Cultural Transformations of Russian Childhood

Historical and Cultural Transformations of Russian Childhood is a collection of multidisciplinary scholarly essays on childhood experience. The volume offers new critical approaches to Russian and Soviet childhood at the intersection of philosophy, literary criticism, film/visual studies, and history. Pedagogical ideas and practices, and the ideological and political underpinnings of the experience of growing up in pre-revolutionary Russia, the Soviet Union, and Putin’s contemporary Russia are central venues of analysis. Toward the goal of constructing the "multimedial childhood text," the contributors tackle issues of happiness and trauma associated with childhood and foreground its fluidity and instability in the Russian context. The volume further examines practices of reading childhood: as nostalgic text, documentary evidence, and historic mythology. Considering Russian childhood as historical documentation or fictional narrative, as an object of material culture, and as embodied in different media (periodicals, visual culture, and cinema), the volume intends to both problematize but also elucidate the relationship between childhood, history, and various modes of narrativity.

See James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 476–8; and Nicolas V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 74–6. 47."

Forge of Empires

In the space of a single decade, three leaders liberated tens of millions of souls, remade their own vast countries, and altered forever the forms of national power: Abraham Lincoln freed a subjugated race and transformed the American Republic. Tsar Alexander II broke the chains of the serfs and brought the rule of law to Russia. Otto von Bismarck threw over the petty Teutonic princes, defeated the House of Austria and the last of the imperial Napoleons, and united the German nation. The three statesmen forged the empires that would dominate the twentieth century through two world wars, the Cold War, and beyond. Each of the three was a revolutionary, yet each consolidated a nation that differed profoundly from the others in its conceptions of liberty, power, and human destiny. Michael Knox Beran's Forge of Empires brilliantly entwines the stories of the three epochal transformations and their fateful legacies. Telling the stories from the point of view of those who participated in the momentous events -- among them Walt Whitman and Friedrich Nietzsche, Mary Chesnut and Leo Tolstoy, Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie -- Beran weaves a rich tapestry of high drama and human pathos. Great events often turned on the decisions of a few lone souls, and each of the three statesmen faced moments of painful doubt or denial as well as significant decisions that would redefine their nations. With its vivid narrative and memorable portraiture, Forge of Empires sheds new light on a question of perennial importance: How are free states made, and how are they unmade? In the same decade that saw freedom's victories, one of the trinity of liberators revealed himself as an enemy to the free state, and another lost heart. What Lincoln called the "germ" of freedom, which was "to grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind," came close to being annihilated in a world crisis that pitted the free state against new philosophies of terror and coercion. Forge of Empires is a masterly story of one of history's most significant decades.

According to the rumor: Vassili, Behind the Veil at the Russian Court, 39–40. “hot, servid". MCCW, 3. ... Wódka: James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage , 1970), 86."

The American YMCA and Russian Culture

In The American YMCA and Russian Culture, Matthew Lee Miller explores the impact of the philanthropic activities of the Young Men’s Christian Association on Russians during the late imperial and early Soviet periods.

 Russian Protestants did translate some of their hymns, just as the Kievan church used liturgical texts translated from ... James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Books, ..."

Wasps

An examination of WASP culture through the lives of some of its most prominent figures. Envied and lampooned, misunderstood and yet distinctly American, WASPs are as much a culture, socioeconomic and ethnic designation, and state of mind. Charming, witty, and vigorously researced, WASPS traces the rise and fall of this distinctly American phenomenon through the lives of prominent icons from Henry Adams and Theodore Roosevelt to George Santayana and John Jay Chapman. Throughout this dynamic story, Beran chronicles the efforts of WASPs to better the world around them as well as the struggles of these WASPs to break free from their restrictive culture. The death of George H. W. Bush brought about reflections on the end of patrician WASP culture, where privilege reigned, but so did a genuine desire to use that privilege for public service. In the time of Trump—who is the antithesis of true WASP culture—people look at the John Kerry, Bobby Kennedy, and Philip and Kay Grahams of the world with wistfulness. And even though we are a more diverse and pluralistic nation now than ever before, there is something about WASP culture that remains enduringly aspirational and fascinating. Beginning at the turn of the 20th century, Beran’s saga dramatizes the evolving American aristocracy that forever changed a nation—and what we can still glean from WASP culture as we enter a new era.

“to the people”: James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage , 1970), 391, 394. In addition to an imperfectly realized dream of Christian charity, there are other points of ..."

Queer Masculinities, 1550-1800

This book offers the most up to the minute snapshot of scholarship on queer/gay historiographies in a number of geographical regions in western Europe, Asia and the US. It features the work of the most established scholars in the field of the history of same-sex desire and promises to take the study of same-sex relations in the early modern period in radical new directions.

2 James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage , 1966); Daniel H. Kaiser and Gary Marker, eds, Reinterpreting Russian History . Readings 860–1860s (New York: Oxford University ..."

The Russian Orthodox Community in Hong Kong

Russian Orthodox Christianity is the cornerstone of a diverse cultural community in modern Hong Kong. This book explores the contributions that this group has made to the social landscape of Hong Kong from the British colonial period to the current era of integration into China.

This event often takes place during the annual Russian Culture Week, cosponsored by the OPASPP and the ... classic work by James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Books, ..."

Russia and China

This book depicts the sophisticated relationship between Russia and China as a pragmatic one, a political “marriage of convenience”. Yet at the same time the relationship is stable, and will remain so. After all, bilateral relations are usually based on pragmatic interests and the pursuit of these interests is the very essence of foreign policy. And, as often happens in life, the most long-lasting marriages are those based on convenience. The highly complex, complicated, ambiguous and yet, indeed, successful relationship between Russia and China throughout the past 25 years is difficult to grasp theoretically. Russian and Chinese elites are hard-core realists in their foreign policies, and the neorealist school in international relations seems to be the most adequate one to research Sino-Russian relations. Realistically, throughout this period China achieved a multidimensional advantage over Russia. Yet, simultaneously Russia-China relations do not follow the patterns of power politics. Beijing knows its limits and does not go into extremes. Rather, China successfully seeks to build a longterm, stable relationship based on Chinese terms, where both sides gain, albeit China gains a little more. Russia in this agenda does not necessary lose; just gains a little less out of this asymmetric deal. Thus, a new model of bilateral relations emerges, which may be called – by paraphrasing the slogan of Chinese diplomacy – as “asymmetric win-win” formula. This model is a kind of “back to the past“ – a contemporary equivalent of the first model of Russia-China relations: the modus vivendi from the 17th century, achieved after the Nerchinsk treaty.

... Putina [ Russian political thinking during President Putin times], Toruń: Adam Marszałek Ballington James H . (1970), The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture , New York: Vintage Books Bartosiak Jacek (2016), ..."

Russians

From former NPR Moscow correspondent Gregory Feifer comes an incisive portrait that draws on vivid personal stories to portray the forces that have shaped the Russian character for centuries-and continue to do so today. Russians explores the seeming paradoxes of life in Russia by unraveling the nature of its people: what is it in their history, their desires, and their conception of themselves that makes them baffling to the West? Using the insights of his decade as a journalist in Russia, Feifer corrects pervasive misconceptions by showing that much of what appears inexplicable about the country is logical when seen from the inside. He gets to the heart of why the world's leading energy producer continues to exasperate many in the international community. And he makes clear why President Vladimir Putin remains popular even as the gap widens between the super-rich and the great majority of poor. Traversing the world's largest country from the violent North Caucasus to Arctic Siberia, Feifer conducted hundreds of intimate conversations about everything from sex and vodka to Russia's complex relationship with the world. From fabulously wealthy oligarchs to the destitute elderly babushki who beg in Moscow's streets, he tells the story of a society bursting with vitality under a leadership rooted in tradition and often on the edge of collapse despite its authoritarian power. Feifer also draws on formative experiences in Russia's past and illustrative workings of its culture to shed much-needed light on the purposely hidden functioning of its society before, during, and after communism. Woven throughout is an intimate, first-person account of his family history, from his Russian mother's coming of age among Moscow's bohemian artistic elite to his American father's harrowing vodka-fueled run-ins with the KGB. What emerges is a rare portrait of a unique land of extremes whose forbidding geography, merciless climate, and crushing corruption has nevertheless produced some of the world's greatest art and some of its most remarkable scientific advances. Russians is an expertly observed, gripping profile of a people who will continue challenging the West for the foreseeable future.

Isaiah Berlin, “The Birth of the Russian Intelligentsia,” in Russian Thinkers (New York: Penguin Books, 1979), 119. 7. ... James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Books, ..."

The Russian Tragedy: The Burden of History

This work provides an interpretive history of Russia from earliest times to today, recounting the story of Russia's past. It discusses Russia's strengths and weaknesses as a civilization, and the challenges posed by the contemporary effort to remake Russia.

Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1955), 138–47. 39. James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Books, ..."

The Russia Anxiety

A history of Russophobia and its living legacy in world affairs With proof of election-meddling and the relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin an ongoing conundrum, little wonder many Americans are experiencing what historian Mark B. Smith calls "the Russia Anxiety." This is no new phenomenon. Time and time again, the West has judged Russia on assumptions of its inherent cunning, malevolence, and brutality. Yet for much of its history, Russia functioned no differently-or at least no more dysfunctionally-than other absolutist, war-mongering European states. So what is it about this country that so often provokes such excessive responses? And why is this so dangerous? Russian history can indeed be viewed as a catalog of brutal violence, in which a rotation of secret police-from Ivan the Terrible's Oprichina to Andropov's KGB and Putin's FSB-hold absolute sway. However, as Smith shows, there are nevertheless deeper political and cultural factors that could lead to democratic outcomes. Violence is not an innate element of Russian culture, and Russia is not unknowable. From foreign interference and cyber-attacks to mega-corruption and nuclear weapons, Smith uses Russia's sprawling history to throw light on contemporary concerns. Smith reveals how the past has created today's Russia and how this past offers hints about its future place in the world-one that reaches beyond crisis and confrontation.

9 I owe the description of the tent and the dome, and the overall sense of Muscovy in this section, to James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture , New York: Vintage , 1970, 47–8."

Orthodox Russia: Belief and Practice Under the Tsars

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY The literature on Russian Orthodoxy is large and growing. This bibliography represents a ... James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage , 1970)."

The Americanization of Europe

Using Germany as a case study of the impact of American culture throughout a period characterized by a totalitarian system, two destructive wars, ethnic cleansing, and economic disaster, this book explores the political and cultural parameters of Americanization and anti-Americanism.

title and frame story about American soldiers ' hostility to Mozart valorizes European high culture and its ... to Russian culture , see James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture ( New York ..."

The Vanishing Futurist

Now a BBC Radio 4 Book at BedtimeThe debut novel from award-winning author of Black Earth City: A Year in the Heart of Russia.When twenty-two-year-old Gerty Freely travels to Russia to work as a governess in early 1914, she has no idea of the vast political upheavals ahead, nor how completely her fate will be shaped by them.In 1917, revolution sweeps away the Moscow Gerty knew. The middle classes - and their governesses - are fleeing the country, but she stays, throwing herself into an experiment in communal living led by charismatic inventor Nikita Slavkin, inspired by his belief in a future free of bourgeois clutter and alight with creativity. Yet the chaos and violence of the outside world cannot be withstood forever. Slavkin's sudden disappearance inspires the Soviet cult of the Vanishing Futurist, the scientist who sacrificed himself for the Communist ideal. Gerty, alone and vulnerable, must now discover where that ideal will ultimately lead.Strikingly vivid, this debut novel by award-winning writer Charlotte Hobson pierces the heart with a story of fleeting, but infinite possibility.

One of the irresistible aspects of early Soviet Art is its unusual optimism about humanity. ... 1991) BILLINGTON , JAMES H ., THE ICON AND THE AXE : AN INTERPRETATIVE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN CULTURE (NEW YORK : VINTAGE , 1970) ( FOR THE ..."

The Return of Totalitarianism

This book enters into a detailed discussion with many theorists of totalitarianism, and demands a re-evaluation of approaches that speak of mass manipulation of people and ideological control mechanisms. Žarko Paić shows that totalitarianism cannot be only a political-ideological problem, but rather a problem of the relationship between the technosphere, political power, and the narcissistic culture of the spectacle, which offers postmodern revisionism and forgetfulness of history as opposed to brave civic participation in the public sphere of acting together. He investigates the transformations the political and cultural processes linked to the notion of ‘totalitarianism’ undergo in the contemporary world, and the transformations (and differences) that this notion expresses today in comparison to what was realized by fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism in the 20th century.

 Billington , James H . 1970. The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture . New York: Vintage Books, Random House. Burrett, Tina. 2020. Charting Putin's Shifting Populism in the Russian Media from 2000 to 2020."

Russian Foreign Policy

In a truly contemporary analysis of Moscow's relations with its neighbors and other strategic international actors, Nikolas K. Gvosdev and Christopher Marsh use a comprehensive vectors approach, dividing the world into eight geographic zones. Each vector chapter looks at the dynamics of key bilateral relationships while highlighting major topical issues—oil and energy, defense policy, economic policy, the role of international institutions, and the impact of major interest groups or influencers—demonstrating that Russia formulates multiple, sometimes contrasting, foreign policies. Providing rich historical context as well as exposure to the scholarly literature, Russian Foreign Policy: Interests, Vectors, and Sectors offers an incisive look at how and why Russia partners with some states while it counter-balances others.

Robert D. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (New York: Picador, 1993, 1996, 2005), x. 8. See, for instance, James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Books, ..."

How Not to Network a Nation

How, despite thirty years of effort, Soviet attempts to build a national computer network were undone by socialists who seemed to behave like capitalists. Between 1959 and 1989, Soviet scientists and officials made numerous attempts to network their nation—to construct a nationwide computer network. None of these attempts succeeded, and the enterprise had been abandoned by the time the Soviet Union fell apart. Meanwhile, ARPANET, the American precursor to the Internet, went online in 1969. Why did the Soviet network, with top-level scientists and patriotic incentives, fail while the American network succeeded? In How Not to Network a Nation, Benjamin Peters reverses the usual cold war dualities and argues that the American ARPANET took shape thanks to well-managed state subsidies and collaborative research environments and the Soviet network projects stumbled because of unregulated competition among self-interested institutions, bureaucrats, and others. The capitalists behaved like socialists while the socialists behaved like capitalists. After examining the midcentury rise of cybernetics, the science of self-governing systems, and the emergence in the Soviet Union of economic cybernetics, Peters complicates this uneasy role reversal while chronicling the various Soviet attempts to build a “unified information network.” Drawing on previously unknown archival and historical materials, he focuses on the final, and most ambitious of these projects, the All-State Automated System of Management (OGAS), and its principal promoter, Viktor M. Glushkov. Peters describes the rise and fall of OGAS—its theoretical and practical reach, its vision of a national economy managed by network, the bureaucratic obstacles it encountered, and the institutional stalemate that killed it. Finally, he considers the implications of the Soviet experience for today's networked world.

... Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia (New York: Picador, 2003); and James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage , 1966). For more on the intellectual context, ..."

A Companion to Joachim of Fiore

This is an extensive introduction to Joachim of Fiore's life, works, and legacy of this medieval abbot and apocalyptic seer, who predicted the perfection of humankind in a future Third Age of the Holy Spirit.

150 James H . Billington , The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretative History of Russian Culture (New York, 1970), 309–14. 151 Schelling praised the liberty of the “third” and “true Church” of the evangelist John, the apostle of the future."

Invisible Hands, Russian Experience, and Social Science

This book investigates cases in which national and international activities have gone massively wrong, entailing seriously negative consequences, and in which the sophisticated analytical models of social science have ceased to be helpful. Illustrations range from the global financial crisis to the failure to achieve speedy systemic change in the former Soviet Union and the failure to achieve development in the Third World. The analysis uses as a backdrop long-term Russian history and short-term Russian encounters with unrestrained capitalism to develop a framework that is based in the so-called new institutionalism. Understanding the causes of systemic failure is shown to require an approach that spans across the increasingly specialized subdisciplines of modern social science. Demonstrating that increasing theoretical sophistication has been bought at the price of a loss of perspective and the need for sensitivity to the role of cultural and historical specificity, the book pleads the case for a new departure in seeking to model the motives for human action.

 Billington , James H . (1970), The Icon and the Axe : An Interpretive History of Russian Culture , New York: Vintage . Birnbaum, Henrik (1996), Novgorod in Focus: Selected Essays by Henrik Birnbaum, Columbus, Oh: Slavica."