Product Description

A surprising number of Jews lived, literally and figuratively, "beyond the Pale" of Jewish Settlement in tsarist Russia during the half-century before the Revolution of 1917. Thanks to the availability of long-closed Russian archives, along with a wide range of other sources, Benjamin Nathans reinterprets the history of the Russian-Jewish encounter.
In the wake of Russia's "Great Reforms," Nathans writes, a policy of selective integration stimulated social and geographic mobility among the empire's Jews. The reaction that culminated, toward the turn of the century, in ethnic restrictions on admission to universities, the professions, and other institutions of civil society reflected broad anxieties that Russians were being placed at a disadvantage in their own empire. Nathans's conclusions about the effects of selective integration and the Russian-Jewish encounter during this formative period will be of great interest to all students of modern Jewish and modern Russian history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #90189 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-29
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .2 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 441 pages

Review
"A groundbreaking, brilliant and compelling book."--"Haaretz

From the Inside Flap
"Nathans's deeply researched and meticulously argued book takes us into the drawing rooms and offices of successful Jews of St. Petersburg and greatly enhances our understanding not only of Jewish intellectual, political, and professional leadership but of Russian politics and society as well."--Richard Stites, author of Russian Popular Culture

"The work of an extremely talented and intelligent historian. It breaks new ground both conceptually and substantively."--Michael Stanislawski, author of Zionism and the Fin de Siècle

"Ben Nathans moves in this remarkable book well beyond the standard spatial as well as conceptual boundaries typically associated with prerevolutionary Russian Jewry. It is the work of a splendid historian who negotiates brilliantly the borders of Russian and Jewish history, and manages to link the two persuasively in an original, lucid narrative."--Steven J. Zipperstein, author of Imagining Russian Jewry

From the Back Cover
"Nathans's deeply researched and meticulously argued book takes us into the drawing rooms and offices of successful Jews of St. Petersburg and greatly enhances our understanding not only of Jewish intellectual, political, and professional leadership but of Russian politics and society as well."-Richard Stites, author of Russian Popular Culture "The work of an extremely talented and intelligent historian. It breaks new ground both conceptually and substantively."-Michael Stanislawski, author of Zionism and the Fin de Siècle "Ben Nathans moves in this remarkable book well beyond the standard spatial as well as conceptual boundaries typically associated with prerevolutionary Russian Jewry. It is the work of a splendid historian who negotiates brilliantly the borders of Russian and Jewish history, and manages to link the two persuasively in an original, lucid narriatve."-Steven J. Zipperstein, author of Imagining Russian Jewry