The Turkestano-Siberian Railroad, or Turksib, was one of the great construction projects of the Soviet Union's First Five-Year Plan. As the major icon to ending the economic "backwardness" of the USSR's minority republics, it stood apart from similar efforts as one of the most potent metaphors for the creation of a unified socialist nation.Built between December 1926 and January 1931 by nearly 50,000 workers and at a cost of more 161 million rubles, Turksib embodied the Bolsheviks' commitment to end ethnic inequality and promote cultural revolution in one the far-flung corners of the old Tsarist Empire, Kazakhstan. Trumpeted as the "forge of the Kazakh proletariat," the railroad was to create a native working class, bringing not only trains to the steppes, but also the Revolution.In the first in-depth study of this grand project, Matthew Payne explores the transformation of its builders in Turksib's crucible of class war, race riots, state purges, and the brutal struggle of everyday life. In the battle for the souls of the nation's engineers, as well as the racial and ethnic conflicts that swirled, far from Moscow, around Stalin's vast campaign of industrialization, he finds a microcosm of the early Soviet Union.

With its gallery of over 360 striking and unfamiliar images and extensive historical text World Railways of the Nineteenth Century invites readers to experience an unparalleled glimpse into the world of nineteenth-century railroading.Peter Skinner, Foreword

The 19th-century steam railway epitomized modernity's relentlessly onrushing advance. Ian Carter delves into the cultural impact of the train. Why, for example, did Britain possess no great railway novel? He compares fiction and images by canonical British figures (Turner, Dickens, Arnold Bennett) with selected French and Russian competitors: Tolstoy, Zola, Monet, Manet. He argues that while high cultural work on the British steam railway is thin, British popular culture did not ignore it. Detailed discussions of comic fiction, crime fiction, and cartoons reveal a popular fascination with railways tumbling from vast (and hitherto unexplored) stores of critically overlooked genres.

This book explores the nexus between railways and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) - the first modern war, and one in which the railways played a key part. Felix Patrikeeff and Harry Shukman examine some of the key dimensions of the Russo-Japanese War, most notably how uncomfortably technological and human dimensions of Russia‘s war effort interleaved in the course of the conflict.

This is a study of the social, economic, and political role of Vodka in nineteenth-century Russia. Since the `Green Serpent' first appeared in sixteenth-century Muscovy, it has played a vital part in Russian life. Vodka became an essential part of Russian working-class celebrations: personal, religious, and commercial. Trade in Vodka redistributed wealth upwards through Russian society over several centuries. Indeed, Russia's status as a great power was underpinned by it: by the nineteenth century, it generated one-third of government revenue - enough to cover most of the costs of the vast army. The dependence on Vodka of both people and state has endured into the Gorbachev era. But despite Vodka's key role in Russian history, and the complex network of corruption associated with it, the subject has been ignored by most historians until now. This study concentrates on an important transitional era in the history of Vodka: the early nineteenth century. During this period, Vodka taxes played the role that salt taxes had played in the ancien r--eacute--;gime in France. The abolition of the tax farm in 1863 should be seen as one of the most important of the `Great Reforms' of the 1860s, an era which, in many ways, parallels the glasnost of the 1980s.

The railways of Manchuria offer an intriguing vantage point for an international history of northeast Asia. Before the completion of the Trans-Siberian railway in 1916, the only rail route from the Imperial Russian capital of St. Petersburg to the Pacific port of Vladivostok transited Manchuria. A spur line from the Manchurian city of Harbin led south to ice-free Port Arthur. Control of these two rail lines gave Imperial Russia military, economic, and political advantages that excited rivalry on the part of Japan and unease on the part of weak and divided China. Meanwhile, the effort to defend and retain that strategic hold against rising Japanese power strained distant Moscow. Control of the Manchurian railways was contested in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5; Japan's 1931 invasion and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo; the second Sino-Japanese War and World War II in Asia; and, the Chinese civil war that culminated in the Communist victory over the Nationalists. Today, the railways are critical to plans for development of China's sparsely populated interior. This volume brings together an international group of scholars to explore this fascinating history.