This is the first study in Russian or Western literature of the rise and fall of Russian naval influence in the North Pacific Ocean from the time of Peter the Great to Tsar Nicholas I. The author deals with a neglected area: inherent tension between Russian naval and mercantile interests and the origins of international rivalry in the North Pacific at large. Barratt shows that Russia's motives for early expeditions to the Pacific were to promote science, exploration, and trade. But when imperialist powers vied for territory and resources in the area, military confrontation became a possibility. .

Imperial Russia provides an accessible reference tool for students, researchers, historians and Russian history enthusiasts. It covers the period from Ivan IV to the death of Nicholas II. There are chronologies for each of the reigns and the handbook covers important political and administrative changes, the influence of the West, religion, serfdom, and economic progress. Wars and international relations are succinctly explained as is the rise of radicalism and the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. Other sections deal with education, the arts, law, press and censorship. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Soviet and East European history.

In this unique book, William Richardson analyzes the descriptions given of Mexico by an assortment of Russian visitors, from the employees of the Russian-American Company who made their first contacts in the early nineteenth century to the artists, diplomats, and exiles of the twentieth century. He explores the biases they brought with them and the interpretations they relayed back to readers at home. Richardson finds that Russians had a particular empathy for the Mexicans, sharing a perceived similarity in their histories: conquest by a foreign power; a long period of centralized, authoritarian rule; an attempt at liberal reform followed by revolution.

The Pacific of the early eighteenth century was not a single ocean but a vast and varied waterscape, a place of baffling complexity, with 25,000 islands and seemingly endless continental shorelines. But with the voyages of Captain James Cook, global attention turned to the Pacific, and European and American dreams of scientific exploration, trade, and empire grew dramatically. By the time of the California gold rush, the Pacific's many shores were fully integrated into world markets-and world consciousness. The Great Ocean draws on hundreds of documented voyages--some painstakingly recorded by participants, some only known by archeological remains or indigenous memory--as a window into the commercial, cultural, and ecological upheavals following Cook's exploits, focusing in particular on the eastern Pacific in the decades between the 1770s and the 1840s. Beginning with the expansion of trade as seen via the travels of William Shaler, captain of the American Brig Lelia Byrd, historian David Igler uncovers a world where voyagers, traders, hunters, and native peoples met one another in episodes often marked by violence and tragedy. Igler describes how indigenous communities struggled against introduced diseases that cut through the heart of their communities; how the ordeal of Russian Timofei Tarakanov typified the common practice of taking hostages and prisoners; how Mary Brewster witnessed first-hand the bloody "great hunt" that decimated otters, seals, and whales; how Adelbert von Chamisso scoured the region, carefully compiling his notes on natural history; and how James Dwight Dana rivaled Charles Darwin in his pursuit of knowledge on a global scale. These stories--and the historical themes that tie them together--offer a fresh perspective on the oceanic worlds of the eastern Pacific. Ambitious and broadly conceived, The Great Ocean is the first book to weave together American, oceanic, and world history in a path-breaking portrait of the Pacific world.

Makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of the early maritime trade in the northern Pacific in general, & in the Bering Strait area in particular. The maritime fur trade was an important commercial force in the Bering Strait region from the early 19th cent. until the outbreak of WW2; nevertheless, its origins are not well understood. But two important documents shed considerable light on the genesis of this trade. These manuscripts describe the voyages of the Amer. trading brigs "Gen. San Martin" & "Pedler" in 1819-20. They provide info. on the relationships that existed between the Amer. maritime traders & the Russian officials in Kamchatka & Alaska, as well as with the inhab. of the Bering Strait region in the first qtr. of the 19th cent. Illustrations.

From 1741 until Alaska was sold to the United States in 1867, the Russian empire claimed territory and peoples in North America. In this book, Ilya Vinkovetsky examines how Russia governed its only overseas colony, illustrating how the colony fit into and diverged from the structures developed in the otherwise contiguous Russian empire. Russian America was effectively transformed from a remote extension of Russia's Siberian frontier penetrated mainly by Siberianized Russians into an ostensibly modern overseas colony operated by Europeanized Russians. Under the rule of the Russian-American Company, the colony was governed on different terms than the rest of the empire, a hybrid of elements carried over from Siberia and imported from rival colonial systems. Its economic, labor, and social organization reflected Russian hopes for Alaska, as well as the numerous limitations, such as its vast territory and pressures from its multiethnic residents, it imposed. This approach was particularly evident in Russian strategies to convert the indigenous peoples of Russian America into loyal subjects of the Russian Empire. Vinkovetsky looks closely at Russian efforts to acculturate the native peoples, including attempts to predispose them to be more open to the Russian political and cultural influence through trade and Russian Orthodox Christianity. Bringing together the history of Russia, the history of colonialism, and the history of contact between native peoples and Europeans on the American frontier, this work highlights how the overseas colony revealed the Russian Empire's adaptability to models of colonialism.