The Origins of Autocracy

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То ту wife, Lidia, to whom I owe this book as well as everything I have, and have not, written

No society in modern times has been more subject to conflicting assumptions and interpretations than that of Russia.

CYRIL E. BLACK

The bloody mire of Mongolian slavery, not the rude glory of the Norman epoch, forms the cradle of Mus­covy, and modern Russia is but a metamorphosis of Muscovy.

KARL MARX

What was Russia's place in history? Was she properly to be regarded as one of the families of the Asian sys­tems, as one of the European polities and societies, a variety of either, or as entirely sui generis, belonging neither to Europe nor to Asia?

DONALD W. TREADGOLD

foreword

by Sidney Monas xiii

acknowledgments xv

introduction The Hypothesis

From Greatness to Obscurity ? 1

The Alternatives 7

On the Path to Re-Europeanization 10

The Choice 11

The Catastrophe 14

"A Riddle for the Mind" 16

Scholarship and Expertise 19

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