Gain a better understanding of the past and cultures of Slavic and East European peoples with American archival collections! Russian and East European Books and Manuscripts in the United States, the first collection of its kind, offers perspectives from leading Slavic librarians, archivists and historians on the cultural history of Russian and East European exiles and immigrants to North America in the twentieth century. Editor Tanya Chebotarev—curator of the Bahkmeteff Archive at Columbia University—and a group of leading authorities document the concerted effort to preserve Russian and East European written culture outside the bounds of Communist power. This book is a vital addition to the collections of archivists, librarians, historians, and graduate students in Russian studies and American immigrations. Russian and East European Books and Manuscripts in the United States explores the role of Russian émigrés, librarians, and scholars in the United States in providing a haven for archival collections of Russian literature, art, and historical manuscripts at the height of panic during the Cold War. This essential resource celebrates the efforts made by archivists and librarians in collecting émigré materials. This book addresses many important related topics, such as: an introduction to the life and work of Boris Aleksandrovich Bakhmeteff—financial contributor to the Archive and the last Russian ambassador to the United States before the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power the Eurasianist movement—its roles and views on science, culture, and empire reflections of Russian émigrés on Soviet nationality policies during the 1920s and 1930s American collections on immigrants from the Russian Empire the New York Public Library—its role in collecting and describing vernacular Slavic and East European language and history materials to a diverse readership Columbia University Libraries’ Slavic and East European Collections—a historical overview of these extraordinarily rich collections of materials from or about the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the countries and people of Eastern Europe the Hoover Institution’s Polish émigré collections and the Polish state archives Russian archives online—present status and future prospects This book also details recent efforts to “repatriate” archival collections and libraries abroad and return them to their countries of origin. Disagreements between countries are already emerging, and Russian and East European Books and Manuscripts in the United States discusses their implications and the future of America’s Slavic archives.

The first work that covers the post-Communist development of historical studies in six Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. A uniquely critical and qualitative analysis from a comparative and critical perspective, written by scholars from the region itself. Focusing on the first post-Communist decade, 1989–1999, the book offers a longer-term perspective that includes the immediate 'prehistory' of that momentous decade as well as its 'posthistoire'. The authors capture the spirit of 1989, that heady mix of elation, surprise, determination, and hope: l'ivresse du possible. This was the paradoxical beginning of Eastern European post-Communism: ushered in by 'anti-Utopian' revolutions, and slowly finding its course towards a bureaucratic, imitative, challenging, and anachronistic restoration of a capitalism that had changed almost beyond recognition when it had mutated into the negative double of Communism. Each individual chapter has numerous and detailed notes and references.

The third volume of The Cambridge History of America and the World covers the volatile period between 1900 and 1945 when the United States emerged as a world power and American engagements abroad flourished in new and consequential ways. Showcasing the most innovative approaches to both traditional topics and emerging themes, leading scholars chart the complex ways in which Americans projected their growing influence across the globe; how others interpreted and constrained those efforts; how Americans disagreed with each other, often fiercely, about foreign relations; and how race, religion, gender, and other factors shaped their worldviews. During the early twentieth century, accelerating forces of global interdependence presented Americans, like others, with a set of urgent challenges from managing borders, humanitarian crises, economic depression, and modern warfare to confronting the radical, new political movements of communism, fascism, and anticolonial nationalism. This volume will set the standard for new understandings of this pivotal moment in the history of America and the world.