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David Ransel has teased out of a text largely made up of laconic references to obscure people and places a story that is compelling to read and sheds light on important aspects of imperial Russian social and cultural history... An impressively researched, beautifully constructed book. -Alexander Martin, author of Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Politics in the Age of Alexander I ... [the author] used Tolchenov's detailed diary to produce a revealing book about a segment of Russian society that had been largely ignored by historians... -Herald Times, May 3, 2009 ... beautifully written... a first-rate scholarly work that challenges our perception of a non-elite person's daily life in the provincial Russia of the second half of the eighteenth century... The result is microhistory at its best. Ransel manages to bring a life, turned nothing but dry text, back to life again... a ground-breaking and thought-provoking contribution to the historiography of eighteenth-century Russia. -Olga E. Glagoleva, Toronto, Canada, The Russian Review, Vol. 68.4 October 2009 ... Ivan Tolchenov's journal, and David Ransel's scrupulous work with it, have produced an insightful portrait of one Russian merchant and of a 'lost' Russian middle class. -Lina Bernstein, BIOGRAPHY, Vol. 32.3 Summer 2009 Russian merchants have never enjoyed a good press. Since the middle of the nineteenth century the spectre of the samodur - the crude grasping domestic tyrant who reigned supreme over 'a dark kingdom'... - has exerted a stubborn hold over popular perceptons of the merchant class... The past few decades, however, have witnessed a shift away from these old habits, and David Ransel's book is an important addition to a robust field of research devoted to these middle orders. -Douglas Smith, TLS - Times Literary Supplement, Oct. 23, 2009 Like an intrepid detective, Ransel grasps these slender clues, and, armed with an inexhaustible inquisitiveness and an imaginative modus operandi, he sets out to provide a detailed and vivid reconstruction of the life of this merchant... The end result is a lively narrative with few antecedents in Russian historiography... This is a book deserving of a wide and appreciative readership. As source study, methodology, argument, and narrative A Merchant's Tale offers rich rewards. -Slavic Review, Spring 2010 Ransel's account provides a vivid analysis of educated merchants in provincial Russia... His skill in blending narative and analysis and the elegance of his prose make the book a pleasure to read. -Business History Review, 84.1, Spring 2010 Ransel has long since established his bona fides as a specialist in Russian social history. Here, he deploys his expertise to good effect in deciphering the intricacies of the Tolchenov diaries. -Journal of Modern History Ransel's account serves as an excellent introduction to the complicated development of Russian society in an era of Enlightenment and change. -HISTORIAN, Volume 73, No. 1 2011 [F]rom the thin threads of Tolchenov's sketchy diary jottings, Ransel has managed to weave a broad tapestry of a Russian merchant's life. This is expertly done by judicious use of the year-end summaries and supporting archival material. -Slavonic and East European Review A Russian Merchant's Tale will change fundamentally the way we think about imperial Russian society. -Daniel Kaiser, co-editor of Reinterpreting Russian History: Readings, 860-1860s David Ransel brought... his extensive studies... [of] Russian merchants to a dignified conclusion... [T]his book in the future will inspire many... research questions. -H-Soz-Kult Tolchenov's Journal has found a fluid interpreter in David L. Ransel, whose patient, knowing analysis illuminates the many gems the diary has to offer... [This book] portrays with unique breadth the middling, provincial world of Russia's widely scattered townsfolk... Ransel's close study will bear repeated reading and help historians visualize the world of eighteenth-century Russia across many dimensions. -John Randolph, University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign, American Historical Review, Vol. 115 Feb. 2010 Tolchnov's diary, available in a Russian edition, is a rich source. Thanks to this fertile encounter between the energetic chronicler and the gifted historian, we have here an edition that reads like a novel while offering a course in Russian history. -Canadian - American Slavic Studies

A Russian Merchant's Tale will change fundamentally the way we think about imperial Russian society. Daniel Kaiser, co-editor of Reinterpreting Russian History: Readings, 860-1860s. David Ransel has teased out of a text largely made up of laconic references to obscure people and places a story that is compelling to read and sheds light on important aspects of imperial Russian social and cultural history... An impressively researched, beautifully constructed book. Alexander Martin, author of Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Politics in the Age of Alexander I

Author Information

David L. Ransel is Robert F. Byrnes Professor of History and Director of the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is author of Village Mothers: Three Generations of Change in Russia and Tataria (IUP, 2005) and editor (with Jane Burbank) of Imperial Russia: New Histories for the Empire (IUP, 1998).

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