Russia's attempt to replace the failed Soviet system and its command economy with a capitalist, democratic society has produced a health and social welfare crisis, at considerable human cost. Russia s Torn Safety Nets presents a series of essays by distinguished Russian and American scholars which describe and analyze the consequences of the collapsed socialist system, focusing on issues of health and demography, HIV/AIDS, drug addiction and abuse, the disabled, aging and pensions, education, women and sexism, and social issues in the military. The essays conclude with a section on the private and public efforts to ease the impact of the ongoing transition on the Russia people.

Russia's attempt to replace the failed Soviet system and its command economy with a capitalist, democratic society has produced a health and social welfare crisis, at considerable human cost. Russia s Torn Safety Nets presents a series of essays by distinguished Russian and American scholars which describe and analyze the consequences of the collapsed socialist system, focusing on issues of health and demography, HIV/AIDS, drug addiction and abuse, the disabled, aging and pensions, education, women and sexism, and social issues in the military. The essays conclude with a section on the private and public efforts to ease the impact of the ongoing transition on the Russia people.

Russia's attempt to replace the failed Soviet system and its command economy with a capitalist, democratic society has produced a health and social welfare crisis, at considerable human cost. Russia s Torn Safety Nets presents a series of essays by distinguished Russian and American scholars which describe and analyze the consequences of the collapsed socialist system, focusing on issues of health and demography, HIV/AIDS, drug addiction and abuse, the disabled, aging and pensions, education, women and sexism, and social issues in the military. The essays conclude with a section on the private and public efforts to ease the impact of the ongoing transition on the Russia people.

Russia since 1980 recounts the epochal political, economic, and social changes that destroyed the Soviet Union, ushering in a perplexing new order. Two decades after Mikhail Gorbachev initiated his regime-wrecking radical reforms, Russia has reemerged as a superpower. It has survived a hyperdepression, modernized, restored private property and business, adopted a liberal democratic persona, and asserted claims to global leadership. Many in the West perceive these developments as proof of a better globalized tomorrow, while others foresee a new cold war. Globalizers contend that Russia is speedily democratizing, marketizing, and humanizing, creating a regime based on the rule of law and respect for civil rights. Opponents counterclaim that Russia before and during the Soviet period was similarly misportrayed and insist that Medvedev's Russia is just another variation of an authoritarian "Muscovite" model that has prevailed for more than five centuries. The cases for both positions are explored while chronicling events since 1980, and a verdict is rendered in favor of Muscovite continuity. Russia will continue challenging the West until it breaks with its cultural legacy.

In 1918 the People's Commissariat of Public Health began a quest to protect the health of all Soviet citizens, but health became more than a political platform or a tactical decision. The Soviets defined and categorized the world by interpreting political orthodoxy and citizenship in terms of hygiene. The assumed political, social, and cultural benefits of a regulated, healthy lifestyle informed the construction of Soviet institutions and identity. Cleanliness developed into a political statement that extended from domestic maintenance to leisure choices and revealed gender, ethnic, and class prejudices. Dirt denoted the past and poor politics; health and cleanliness signified mental acuity, political orthodoxy, and modernity. Health, though essential to the revolutionary vision and crucial to Soviet plans for utopia, has been neglected by traditional histories caught up in Cold War debates. The Body Soviet recovers this significant aspect of Soviet thought by providing a cross-disciplinary, comparative history of Soviet health programs that draws upon rich sources of health care propaganda, including posters, plays, museum displays, films, and mock trials. The analysis of propaganda makes The Body Soviet more than an institutional history; it is also an insightful critique of the ideologies of the body fabricated by health organizations. "A masterpiece that will thoroughly fascinate and delight readers. Starks's understanding of propaganda and hygiene in the early Soviet state is second to none. She tells the stories of Soviet efforts in this field with tremendous insight and ingenuity, providing a rich picture of Soviet life as it was actually lived."— Elizabeth Wood, author of From Baba to Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia

This book examines a number of key questions about social change in contemporary Russia - issues such as how people survive when they are not paid for months on end, 'the New Poor', the falling birth rate, why so many Russian men die in middle age, whether regional identities are becoming stronger, and how people's sense of 'Russianness' has developed since the creation of the Russian Federation in 1992. It examines these issues by looking at actual experiences in three small Russian towns. It includes a great deal of original ethnographic research, and, by looking at real places overall, provides a good sense of how different aspects of social change are interlinked, and how they actually affect real people's lives.

Russia and a few other Eurasian countries have been home to the fastest growing epidemics of HIV in the world over the last several years. This volume offers country-specific accounts, authored by the leading players in the analysis of the situation and the fight against the virus.