Essays in Russian Social and Economic History (Imperial Encounters in Russian History)

In this wide-ranging collection from Professor Steven L. Hoch of Washington State University, various facets of the life of Russia's rural population are examined, from banking crises and infectious diseases to peasant rituals and land reform. In contrast to longstanding interpretations of the Russian peasantry, Hoch's work emphasizes the role of social, epidemiological, and ecological forces in the formation of rural Russian society. Using sources infrequently considered by previous scholars, he assesses the impact of the broad economy on shaping the government polices of emancipation and land reform and the long-term consequences of these policies on peasant material well-being. Did Russia's emancipated serfs really pay too much for too little land? : statistical anomalies and long-tailed distributions On good numbers and bad : Malthus, population trends, and peasant standard of living in late Imperial Russia Serfs in Imperial Russia demographic insights Serf diet in nineteenth-century Russia Famine, disease, and mortality patterns in the parish of Borshevka, Russia, 1830-1912 The banking crisis, peasant reform, and economic development in Russia, 1857-1861 The tax censuses and the decline of the serf population in Imperial Russia, 1833-1858 / (Steven L. Hoch and Wilson R. Augustine) Tall tales : anthropometric measures of well-being in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, 1821-1960 Bridewealth, dowry, and socioeconomic differentiation in rural Russia The serf economy, the peasant family, and the social order The great reformers and the world they did not know : drafting the emancipation legislation in Russia, 1858-61. In this wide-ranging collection from Professor Steven L. Hoch of Washington State University, various facets of the life of Russia{u2019}s rural population are examined, from banking crises and infectious diseases to peasant rituals and land reform. In contrast to longstanding interpretations of the Russian peasantry, Hoch{u2019}s work emphasizes the role of social, epidemiological, and ecological forces in the formation of rural Russian society. Using sources infrequently considered by previous scholars, he assesses the impact of the broad economy on shaping the government polices of emancipation and land reform and the long-term consequences of these policies on peasant material well-being