Modernization from the Other Shore: American Intellectuals and the Romance of Russian Development

by David C. Engerman

Overview

From the late nineteenth century to the eve of World War II, America's experts on Russia watched as Russia and the Soviet Union embarked on a course of rapid industrialization. Captivated by the idea of modernization, diplomats, journalists, and scholars across the political spectrum rationalized the enormous human cost of this path to progress. In a fascinating examination of this crucial era, David Engerman underscores the key role economic development played in America's understanding of Russia and explores its profound effects on U.S. policy.

American intellectuals from George Kennan to Samuel Harper to Calvin Hoover understood Russian events in terms of national character. Many of them used stereotypes of Russian passivity, backwardness, and fatalism to explain the need for--and the costs of--Soviet economic development. These costs included devastating famines that left millions starving while the government still exported grain.

This book is a stellar example of the new international history that seamlessly blends cultural and intellectual currents with policymaking and foreign relations. It offers valuable insights into the role of cultural differences and the shaping of economic policy for developing nations even today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674272415
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	410
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

David C. Engerman is Leitner International Interdisciplinary Professor in the Department of History at Yale University.

Table of Contents

Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Author’s Note Introduction: From the Other Shore Part I: Autocratic Russia, Lethargic Russians Chapter 1. An Empire of Climate Chapter 2. Endurance without Limit Chapter 3. Studying Our Nearest Oriental Neighbor Part II: Revolutionary Russia, Instinctual Russians Chapter 4. Little above the Brute Chapter 5. Sheep without a Shepherd Chapter 6. Feeding the Mute Millions of Muzhiks Part III: Modernizing Russia, Backward Russians Chapter 7. New Society, New Scholars Chapter 8. The Romance of Economic Development Chapter 9. Starving Itself Great Chapter 10. Scratch a Soviet and You’ll Find a Russian Epilogue: Russian Expertise in an Ag eof Social Science Sources Abbreviations Notes Acknowledgments Index

What People are Saying About This

An impressive work in a number of ways, deeply grounded in primary sources, and exceptionally well written, David Engerman's book is a treasure trove for students of Russian-American relations.

Frank Ninkovich

An original, highly stimulating, and beautifully written exploration of the cultural dimension of U.S.-Russian relations. By placing American perceptions of Russia in a broad historical and conceptual context, Engerman recaptures outlooks and frameworks that were at one time central to all serious thinking about international relations. In today's era of globalization, the problems of universalism and particularism that lie at the core of his account are every bit as relevant for us as they were to his historical protagonists.
— Frank Ninkovich, St. John's University

Anders Stephanson

Based on extraordinary archival research, Engerman's gripping study is historical scholarship at its most impressive.
— Anders Stephanson, Columbia University

Abbott Gleason

An impressive work in a number of ways, deeply grounded in primary sources, and exceptionally well written, David Engerman's book is a treasure trove for students of Russian-American relations.
— Abbott Gleason, Brown University

Thomas Bender

David Engerman has written an original and imaginatively conceived inquiry into cultural perception as a form of social power--and moral challenge. Deftly weaving together Russian and American history, he recounts how U.S. foreign policy intellectuals and experts of all political persuasions allowed persistent cultural stereotypes and universalistic visions of the future to justify unimaginable suffering and death in Russia. This timely and important book speaks urgently not only to haunting moral questions of the century past but also to those in the present.
— Thomas Bender, New York University

Editorial Reviews

This fascinating, full-blown account of how Russia was reflected in the American mind ranges from the late 1800s, across the 1917 Revolution, and into the harsh, hopeful, tragic assault of modernization in the 1930s. What began with the travel adventures of people such as the senior George Kennan by the turn of the century widened to include the founders of Russian studies in the United States, Archibald Cary Coolidge and Samuel Harper, as well as their students and wealthy well-connected patrons such as Charles Crane. They, the author argues, applied to the Russian autocracy and peasantry stereotypes of national character as surely as did their less expert forerunners and then exported these images into the Wilson, Coolidge, and Harding administrations. Their intellectual successors carried on, idealizing the modernizing model they expected the Soviet Union to be and closing their eyes to the human cost. Engerman digs deep into decades of published and unpublished writings by a broad spectrum of Russia experts and traces with skill their impact on government.

Foreign Affairs

An original, highly stimulating, and beautifully written exploration of the cultural dimension of U.S.-Russian relations. By placing American perceptions of Russia in a broad historical and conceptual context, Engerman recaptures outlooks and frameworks that were at one time central to all serious thinking about international relations. In today's era of globalization, the problems of universalism and particularism that lie at the core of his account are every bit as relevant for us as they were to his historical protagonists.

Frank Ninkovich

Readers of Mr. Engerman's book will be struck by parallels to current globalization debates between ascendant universalists and skeptical particularists.

Wall Street Journal - Bertrand M. Patenaude

An impressive work in a number of ways, deeply grounded in primary sources, and exceptionally well written, David Engerman's book is a treasure trove for students of Russian-American relations.

Abbott Gleason

David Engerman has written an original and imaginatively conceived inquiry into cultural perception as a form of social power—and moral challenge. Deftly weaving together Russian and American history, he recounts how U.S. foreign policy intellectuals and experts of all political persuasions allowed persistent cultural stereotypes and universalistic visions of the future to justify unimaginable suffering and death in Russia. This timely and important book speaks urgently not only to haunting moral questions of the century past but also to those in the present.

Thomas Bender

Based on extraordinary archival research, Engerman's gripping study is historical scholarship at its most impressive.

Anders Stephanson

This fascinating, full-blown account of how Russia was reflected in the American mind ranges from the late 1800s, across the 1917 Revolution, and into the harsh, hopeful, tragic assault of modernization in the 1930s...Engerman digs deep into decades of published and unpublished writings by a broad spectrum of Russia experts and traces with skill their impact on government.

Foreign Affairs - Robert Legvold

Readers of Mr. Engerman's book will be struck by parallels to current globalization debates between ascendant universalists and skeptical particularists.
— Bertrand M. Patenaude

Wall Street Journal