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Francine Hirsch's "Empire of Nations"

A fascinating historical look at the formation of the Soviet Union, from the eyes of its pioneering ethnographers: Empire of Nations.

“Referring to the Soviet Union as an ‘empire of nations,’ Hirsch demonstrates through prodigious research how ethnographers from the former tsarist regime collaborated with the Leninists to shape the new state. Hers is the tale of a modernizing, self-styled scientific state that imposed categories, names, and programs on ethnic populations with relatively little say in their own fate. . . . Empire of Nations is an exceptionally rich book and a significant addition to the growing literature on the construction of the Soviet state. Beautifully written and clearly presented even when the story hovers on complicated administrative matters, Hirsch’s account of the Soviet Union as a ‘work in progress’ that neither began with a blueprint nor achieved completion reaffirms the now widely accepted view of nation-formation as a process of human intervention and invention.”— Ronald Grigor Suny, The Moscow Times

“Hirsch does not simply . . . posit another ideological or epistemological model of Soviet history.  She instead provides a completely new kind of analysis.  Her book is more than an innovative study of high quality; it stakes out a position that cannot fail to have a long-standing impact on the historiography of the Soviet state.”—Ab Imperio