REVIEWS 581 It is however somewhat old-fashioned in its approach, focusing above all on Kings and Battles, Dynastic Relations, and Enlightenment and Reforms. Interpretations are also on occasion old-fashioned: thus while Frederick II’s partial but definitely incomplete relaxation of serfdom leads on to a hesitantly positive judgment of him as a monarch of his time (p. 216), Catherine II’s failure to abolish serfdom looms as a major blot on her escutcheon which meant that Russia could not ‘transform itself into a modern society’ (p. 240) — recent re-evaluations of Russian serfdom are not considered. Some items that one might expect are omitted. Christian Wolff is mentioned briefly, but the fact of the dominance of his system in Russian philosophy throughout the eighteenth century, until replaced by another German luminary, Kant, does not appear. The wide-ranging influence in Russia of cameralism, largely a German phenomenon, which equally affected Russia, Prussia and Austria, is ignored. One result of cameralist policy was the formation of a whole new social group in Russia, the Volga Germans (unmentioned, except fleetingly in connection with the 1812 formation of the Russian-German Legion, p. 367). Friedrich II’s opposition to the death penalty for infanticide or abortion is explained (p. 206) in terms of Enlightened Reform, disregarding its place in the cameralist population policies which were a major driver of his domestic regime. The volume ends with detailed military accounts of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and his downfall 1812–13, including the place of Germans and German forces in the Napoleonic and the Russian ranks. This volume is a cross between detailed history and coffee-table presentation; but it brings together in concise form a great deal of foundational information about Russian-German interactions, parallels and comparisons between 1700 and 1813. Cambridge Roger Bartlett Stewart, John Massey. Thomas, Lucy and Alatau: The Atkinsons’ Adventures in Siberia and the Kazakh Steppe. Unicorn, London, 2018. 344 pp. Illustrations. Appendices. Catalogue raisonné. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. £25.00. This is the latest book about the fascinating travels of an English family, in 1847–53, across the Urals, Siberia and what is now Eastern Kazakhstan (the previous title on the same topic, South to the Great Steppe by Nick Fielding, came out in 2015 and was reviewed in SEER, vol. 94, no. 4, pp. 748–50). Writing of the industrial towns along his route, the father of the family opined that ‘civilization of a very high character had reached these regions’ (p. 77), while the mother expressed her preference for the nomadic lifestyle of local ethnic SEER, 98, 3, JULY 2020 582 minorities: ‘I could almost wish I were a Kazakh, wandering forth like them, under a serene sky, in search of mountain pastures’ (p. 232). Thomas Witlam Atkinson (1799–1861), an architect who fell into debt, sought to revive his fortunes by travelling to Russia’s little-known regions to make their pictorial record for a subsequent sale. Permission to do so was granted by Emperor Nicholas I. While in Russia, Thomas married the governess Lucy Sherrard Finley (1819–93), who joined him on his journeys. Their son Alatau Tamchiboulac (1848–1906), named after his parents’ favourite geographical locations, was (Thomas claimed) ‘the first and perhaps the only Englishman that [would] ever be born in [the Cossack fort of] Kopal [now Qapal]’ (p. 131). Despite his very young age, Alatau, too, became Thomas and Lucy’s travelling companion along a substantial segment of a total of nearly 50,000 arduous miles. All in all, while in Russia, Thomas produced well over 500 watercolour sketches, chiefly, it seems, of landscapes and indigenes (the whereabouts of most sketches are now unknown). His mission thus accomplished, Thomas and family returned to Britain in 1857. That year also saw the publication of his travel account, Oriental and Western Siberia. The book went into several editions in the UK and the USA and was even translated into Spanish. Thomas became a kind of celebrity and was elected a Fellow at both the Royal Geographical and the Geological Societies in London. However, of his sixtythree pictures auctioned at Christie’s in 1858 only less than a half were sold, possibly...