by Marlène Laruelle (Author)
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has been marginalized at the edge of a Western-dominated political and economic system. In recent years, however, leading Russian figures, including former president Vladimir Putin, have begun to stress a geopolitics that puts Russia at the center of a number of axes: European-Asian, Christian-Muslim-Buddhist, Mediterranean-Indian, Slavic-Turkic, and so on. This volume examines the political presuppositions and expanding intellectual impact of Eurasianism, a movement promoting an ideology of Russian-Asian greatness, which has begun to take hold throughout Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey. Eurasianism purports to tell Russians what is unalterably important about them and why it can only be expressed in an empire. Using a wide range of sources, Marlene Laruelle discusses the impact of the ideology of Eurasianism on geopolitics, interior policy, foreign policy, and culturalist philosophy.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 296
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 14 May 2012
ISBN 10: 1421405768
ISBN 13: 9781421405766
Book Overview: The importance of this work lies in the remarkable, even extraordinary, research effort that underpins its writing. The work's best features are the breadth of its coverage and the trenchancy of its analysis. -- John B. Dunlop, Hoover Institution This book is an impressive achievement-wide-ranging yet sensitive to context and careful to bring together the many varieties of Eurasianism that have emerged over the 20th century. Laruelle makes us see why and how the idea of empire continues to appeal in post-Soviet space. -- Willard Sunderland, University of Cincinnati