Islam and the Russian Empire. Reform and Revolution in Central Asia By HELENE CARRERE D'ENCAUSSE

Abstract

In any field of history, a book needs to be something quite special to justify an unaltered reprinting forty years after its original publication. For the history of the Russian Empire this is even more true, thanks to the archival revolution following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which finally allowed Western scholars to use long-inaccessible collections of documents. A book which, as in this case, concentrates on the Islamic, non-Russian peoples of the Empire, whose history more than any other has been revolutionized since the early 1990s, would need to be a masterpiece. Unfortunately Hélène Carrère d’Encausse’s Reforme et Révolution chez les Musulmans de l’Empire Russe was a flawed book even on its original publication in 1966, and was already beginning to look rather tired and dusty when this English translation was first published in 1988 without any updating (the timing was unfortunate). I.B. Tauris’s decision to re-publish it without so much as a new critical introduction is baffling, an insult to the intelligence of those who are familiar with the field, and a shameless attempt to cash in on the ignorance of those who are not.