New Perspectives on Russian-American Relations includes eighteen articles on Russian-American relations from an international roster of leading historians. Covering topics such as trade, diplomacy, art, war, public opinion, race, culture, and more, the essays show how the two nations related to one another across time from their first interactions as nations in the eighteenth century to now. Instead of being dominated by the narrative of the Cold War, New Perspectives on Russian-American Relations models the exciting new scholarship that covers more than the political and diplomatic worlds of the later twentieth century and provides scholars with a wide array of the newest research in the field.

New Perspectives on Russian-American Relations includes eighteen articles on Russian-American relations from an international roster of leading historians. Covering topics such as trade, diplomacy, art, war, public opinion, race, culture, and more, the essays show how the two nations related to one another across time from their first interactions as nations in the eighteenth century to now. Instead of being dominated by the narrative of the Cold War, New Perspectives on Russian-American Relations models the exciting new scholarship that covers more than the political and diplomatic worlds of the later twentieth century and provides scholars with a wide array of the newest research in the field.

The pivotal era of Reconstruction has inspired an outstanding historical literature. In the half-century after W.E.B. DuBois published Black Reconstruction in America (1935), a host of thoughtful and energetic authors helped to dismantle racist stereotypes about the aftermath of emancipation and Union victory in the Civil War. The resolution of long-running interpretive debates shifted the issues at stake in Reconstruction scholarship, but the topic has remained a vital venue for original exploration of the American past. In Reconstructions: New Perspectives on the Postbellum United States, eight rising historians survey the latest generation of work and point to promising directions for future research. They show that the field is opening out to address a wider range of adjustments to the experiences and effects of Civil War. Increased interest in cultural history now enriches understandings traditionally centered on social and political history. Attention to gender has joined a focus on labor as a powerful strategy for analyzing negotiations over private and public authority. The contributors suggest that Reconstruction historiography might further thrive by strengthening connections to such subjects as western history, legal history, and diplomatic history, and by redefining the chronological boundaries of the postwar period. The essays provide more than a variety of attractive vantage points for fresh examination of a major phase of American history. By identifying the most exciting recent approaches to a theme previously studied so ably, the collection illuminates the creative process in scholarly historical literature.

The Americanist community played a vital role in the Cold War, as well as in large part directing the cultural consumption of Soviet society and shaping perceptions of the US. To shed light onto this important, yet under-studied, academic community, Sergei Zhuk here explores the personal histories of prominent Soviet Americanists, considering the myriad cultural influences - from John Wayne's bravado in the film Stagecoach to Miles Davis - that shaped their identities, careers and academic interests. Zhuk's compelling account draws on a wide range of understudied archival documents, periodicals, letters and diaries as well as more than 100 exclusive interviews with prominent Americanists to take the reader from the post-war origins of American studies, via the extremes of the Cold War, thaw and perestroika, to Putin's Russia. Soviet Americana is a comprehensive insight into shifting attitudes towards the US throughout the twentieth century and an essential resource for all Soviet and Cold War historians.

Although many observers argue that US-Russia relations are a simple reflection of elites' political and economic preferences in both countries, these preferences tend to arise from pre-existing belief systems that are deeply rooted in the public and accentuated by mass media. In Dark Double, Andrei P. Tsygankov focuses on the driving power of values and media, in addition to political and economic interests, in structuring US-Russia relations. By analyzing mainstream US newspapers and other media sources, Tsygankov identifies five media narratives involving Russia since the Cold War's end and studies them through a framework of three inter-related factors: historic and cultural differences between the two countries, inter-state competition, and polarizing domestic politics. He shows how Americans' negative views toward Russia draw from a deep wellspring of suspicion and are further enhanced by a biased media that regularly exploits such negativity, Russia's centralization of power and anti-American attitudes. Given the intensity of our current impasse with Russia, Dark Double represents an important intervention that forces us to think about the sources of conflict in a new way.

This book provides a comprehensive and systematic overview of Putin’s third term as Russia’s president. It covers political, international relations, economic and social issues, and provides a balanced assessment of Putin’s successes and failures. These include the conflict in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea, scandals associated with the Olympics, Russia’s increasing involvement with Asia, including with the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, and shifts in the economy away from huge reliance on energy resources. The book sets Putin’s activities as president in their wider context, discussing his overall popularity, the weakness of potential opposition and the development of the Russian Federation as a relatively new state.

Journal articles, books, book chapters, book reviews, dissertations, and selected government publications on East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union published in the United States and Canada

This text contains short and concise papers that focus on the following themes: pre-Clovis archaeology; Clovis-era archaeology; Paleoamerican paleobiology; new approaches to the study of Paleoamericans; Paleoamericans and public policy; and new directions for Paleoamerican archaeology.