Russia and the Mediterranean, 1797-1807

History

SAUL, NORMAN E.

Russia

University of Chicago Press

Sailors in Revolt: The Russian Baltic Fleet in 1917

Regents Press of Kansas

We began as friends. Then followed nearly a century of suspicion and hostility. Now, thanks to glasnost and a thaw in the Cold War, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union have nearly come full circle—we're almost friends again. In the initial volume of a three-volume series, historian Norman Saul presents the first comprehensive survey of early Russian-American relations by an American scholar. Drawing upon secondary and documentary publications as well as archival materials from the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain, he reveals a wealth of new detail about contacts between the two countries between the American Revolutionary War and the purchase of Alaska in 1867. By weaving personal experiences into analysis of the basic trends, Saul provides a fuller understanding of Soviet-American experience. His conclusion? That the early relationships—diplomatic, cultural, scientific, economic, and personal—between the two countries were more extensive than had been reported before, more important, and more congenial. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the U.S. and Russia had a lot in common, Saul notes, and many of those similarities persist today. Both countries, in part because of geographic size, faced problems in developing their natural resources. Both countries were economically dependent on systems of forced labor—slavery in the U.S. and serfdom in Russia. Reform resulted in freedom without land for American slaves, and land without freedom for the serfs. Then, as now, Russia looked to the U.S. for help with technology. Saul shows that differences also persist. The United States was geographically isolated and developed in relative peace, while Russia developed within the reach of the European powers and, consequently, worried more about defense. As is still the case, Russian government seemed appallingly autocratic to those whose rights were guaranteed by the U.S. constitution, and deal-making between citizens of the two countries was hampered by the Russians' belief that Americans were materialistic and deceitful, and by Americans' notion that Russians were slow, bureaucratic, and expected to be bribed. At a time when United States-Soviet relations have taken yet another dramatic turn, it is more important than ever to trace—and to understand—the history of the relationship of these two countries. As Saul shows clearly, parallel developments of the late eighteenth to mid nineteenth centuries in some ways foreshadow parallel development into the two superpowers in the mid twentieth.

Distant Friends: The United States and Russia, 1763-1867

Americas

University Press of Kansas

In 1867 Mark Twain cruised into the Black Sea on the first American tourist ship to visit in Russia. Just a few years later Russian Grand Duke Alexis in turn was hunting buffalo and drinking champagne on the Nebraska prairie. Both were taking advantage of a growing, if precarious, alliance between two of the worlds most influential nations. In fact, as Norman Saul reveals, between 1867—the year of the Alaskan purchase—and the beginning of World War I, Russian and American dignitaries, diplomats, businessmen, writers, tourists, and entertainers crossed between the two countries in far greater numbers than was previously known. Following the widely praised Distant Friends, volume one of Saul's trilogy on Russian American relations, Concord and Conflict provides the first comprehensive investigation of this highly transformational and fateful era in Russian-American relations. Excavating previously unmined Russian and American archives, he explores the flow and fluctuation of economic, diplomatic, social, and cultural affairs; personal and professional conflicts and scandals; and the evolution of each nation's perception of the other. At first concentrating on their similarities following the American Civil War, Saul contends, the Russian and American people established a tradition of friendship in the absence of major controversy. In many ways, they felt bound by a sense of common destiny, corresponding periods of reform and progress, and a mutual hostility toward the "older" European powers. Throughout Russia, American trademarks became familiar as U.S. companies such as Singer, New York Life, Westinghouse, and International Harvester took root. Hard winter wheat—today a vital American crop—was introduced by Russian immigrants. The Smithsonian established an information exchange with the Russian government. War and Peace was translated into English and widely distributed in the United States. And the first YMCA was established in Russia. As progressive reform waned in 1880s Russia, however, Americans became increasingly leery of Russia's repressive internal tactics, hostility toward Jews, open-door policy toward China, and expansion in the Far East while Russians found America's actions and attitudes hypocritical and equally confusing. Yet despite deterioration of diplomatic ties, Saul shows, a semblance of kinship endured into the twentieth century as cultural exchanges and business opportunities continued to escalated. Illuminating fifty of the most significant—and surprisingly open—years of this frequently tumultuous and contradictory association, Concord and Conflict reaffirms Saul's status as "the leading American authority on Russian-American relations before 1917" (Journal of American History).

Concord and Conflict: The United States and Russia, 1867-1914

For Russia, it was a time of troubles: war, famine, and social upheaval the likes of which the world had never seen before. World War I, two revolutions in 1917, and the subsequent civil war and Allied intervention completely eradicated one regime and replaced it with a radically new one. Now an award-winning diplomatic historian ties these events together to reveal their far-reaching consequences for the future of not only the new Soviet Union but of the United States as well. In War and Revolution, Norman Saul offers a fresh analysis of this troubled era in Russia and of the American reaction to it. Tracing the events surrounding America's entry into the European conflict and its encouragement of continued Russian participation even in the face of domestic unrest, he shows how those circumstances adversely affected relations between two nations and shaped their futures in the century ahead. Drawing on rarely accessed military and diplomatic archives in both countries, Saul reaches beyond official actions to give readers a vivid sense of those times. He surveys the vast panorama of events while providing not only detailed accounts of the activities of consular, diplomatic, and military staffs but also colorful vignettes of ordinary Americans in Russia involved in humanitarian relief and other activities. Businessmen and artists, Red Cross volunteers and journalists-all were caught up in the immediacy of war and revolution, and all contributed to the shifting sentiments of two nations. War and Revolution is the third volume in Saul's sweeping history of U.S.-Russian relations, already hailed for setting "a new standard for how the history of international relations ought to be written" (TLS). Here he further develops the theme of "mirror-imaging," describing ways in which Americans and Russians saw themselves as having a common relationship distinguished from other European or Asian nations. Despite the turmoil of this era, he explains, Russians continued to look to America for ideas and models while Americans expected Russians to follow their lead in developing resources and reforming institutions. By 1921, Americans were in a quandary about Russia as its former friend pursued a hostile course beyond U.S. control. Saul's account of those years clearly shows how this parting of the ways came about—and how it set the stage for a cold war that would test both country's wills later in the century.

War and Revolution: The United States and Russia, 1914-1921

With Friends or Foes? Norman Saul continues his monumental multivolume magnum opus on U.S.-Russian relations over the course of 200 years. This fourth volume provides the first comprehensive study in any language of an era that shaped the rest of the century and captures the major changes in relations between two nations on the verge of becoming dominant global powers. Among other things, Saul examines the rationale for America's failure to recognize the Soviet government through the early 1930s, analyzing the impact of the Red Scare and the roles of the State Department, Russian migrs, religious groups, and key individuals—like Charles Evans Hughes, Robert Kelley, Herbert Hoover, Boris Skvirsky, Olga Kameneva, and Maxim Litvinov—on the policy process. In addition, he recalls the American Relief Administration's gigantic effort to help Russian peasants and garners new material from American business records on concession arrangements and commerce and on Soviet responses during the first Five Year Plan. He also records travelers' impressions, cultural exchange, and the role of academia in each country—particularly the contribution of Russian émigré scholars to American education and the contributions of American journalists in Russia. Saul also reveals the tendency on both sides to preserve an atmosphere of secrecy, conducting business behind closed doors and rarely on paper. His prodigious research in the Hoover Presidential Library, the Franklin Roosevelt Library, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University-incorporating overlooked Diplomat Post Records and featuring an interview with George Kennan on his diplomatic role—has yielded a wealth of new insights into what really happened during a period in the history of the relations between the two countries that remains mysterious and controversial. Breaking new ground in diplomatic, economic, social, and cultural history, Saul's book illuminates both the mutual fascination that briefly permitted peaceful coexistence (and eventual alliance) and the ideological battles that ultimately led to the Cold War.

Friends or Foes?: The United States and Soviet Russia, 1921-1941

In The Life and Times of Charles R. Crane, Norman E. Saul analyzes the contributions of Charles R. Crane, world traveler, businessman, diplomat, and philanthropist in the setting of his times. Crane acquired his appreciation for Russian culture and life through travel in the country, making a total of twenty-four trips to Russia. He developed friendships and professional relationships with many prominent Russians in political, cultural, and artistic spheres in addition to his connections to important figures in American history such as Woodrow Wilson. As the son of a Chicago industrialist with little formal education, Charles R. Crane enjoyed remarkable success serving as a financial backer and advisor to the Woodrow Wilson administration, founding member of the 1917 Root Commission to Russia, minister to China, and establishing a factory in Russia to manufacture air brakes for the Russian railroad. He devoted a considerable amount of his own time and resources to educating Americans about the Russian people. He sponsored visiting lecturers, subsidized publications, and commissioned works by Russian artists. Charles Crane was arguably the first true American globalist. His activities involved Russia, China, and the Middle East, but Saul emphasizes his travels in Russia and his role in the development and promotion of Russian studies in America. Crane represented the United States becoming a world power in business and diplomacy, and fostered an American appreciation and knowledge of Russian, Asian, and Middle Eastern societies. By studying this unusual man, Saul explores the world in which he lived and traveled. The relationship between America and Russia has always been a complex and fascinating one, and Saul shines light on a pivotal period in that relationship.

The Life and Times of Charles R. Crane, 1858–1939: American Businessman, Philanthropist, and a Founder of Russian Studies in America

Reference

Lexington Books

For more than 200 years the United States and Russia have shared a multi-faceted relationship. Because of the rise of power the two countries enjoyed in the late 19th and through the 20th century, Russian-American relations have dominated much of recent world history. Prior to World War II the two countries had relatively friendly contacts in culture, commerce, and diplomacy, however, as they contested for supremacy during the Cold War relations turned hostile and competitive. With the apparent end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Union and of communism in 1991, the relationship continues to evolve and the future looks uncertain but promising.The Historical Dictionary of United States-Russian/Soviet Relations identifies the key issues, individuals, and events in the history of U.S.-Russian/Soviet relations and places them in the context of the complex and dynamic regional strategic, political, and economic processes that have fashioned the American relationship with Russia. This is done through a chronology, a bibliography, an introductory essay, and several hundred cross-referenced dictionary entries on key persons, places, events, institutions, and organizations.

Historical Dictionary of United States-Russian/Soviet Relations (Volume 8) (Historical Dictionaries of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, 8)

Scarecrow Press

The conduct of the foreign relations of the Russian state in its several contexts—Kiev Rus, Muscovy, Russian Empire, Provisional Government, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and Russian Federation—were unique in its common currents from the beginning to the present. Geography was certainly a key factor, located in the center of the world's largest land mass and surrounded by often hostile forces. “All of the Russias” had to confront the problems of open frontiers and the conduct of relations with a number of adjacent states of different ethnicity, and with many that were more distant. No other nation states had to face such complex and divergent circumstances over their histories. Most other Great Powers were neighbors of similar states in culture and historical background, whereas Russia had to deal with Asian, as well as European countries. The Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Foreign Policy covers the history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important individuals, events, and other aspects of the foreign policy of this important country. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Russian foreign policy.

Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Foreign Policy (Historical Dictionaries of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations)

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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