Russia’s Path toward Enlightenment. Faith, Politics, and Reason, 1500-1801

This book, focusing on the history of religious and political thinking in early modern Russia, demonstrates that Russia’s path toward enlightenment began long before Peter the Great’s opening to the West. Examining a broad range of writings, G. M. Hamburg shows why Russia’s enlightenment constituted a precondition for the explosive emergence of nineteenth-century writers such as Fedor Dostoyevsky and Vladimir Soloviev. G. M. Hamburg is Otto M. Behr Professor of History at Claremont-McKenna College. His previous books include Politics of Russian Nobility, 1881–1905;Boris Chicherin and Early Russian Liberalism; and (as editor) Liberty, Equality, and the Market: Essays by B. N. Chicherin. He lives in Claremont, CA.