At a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin recently stated that Russia would always be a "reliable ally" to the Islamic world, the Hoover Institution Press today released Russia and Its Islamic World, which examines Russia’s complex and occasionally, contradictory history with Islam.
“A brilliant analysis of Russia’s tortured relationship with Islam from the Middle Ages to the present day. Service deploys his deep knowledge of modern Russian history to fill a crucial gap in the literature,” said Professor Eugene Rogan, Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony's College, University of Oxford. “Essential reading for scholars and policymakers alike.”
In Russia and Its Islamic World, Robert Service explores centuries of Russian territorial expansion, Muslim jihad, the Soviet assault on Islam, and Putin’s current ambition to restore Russia back to one of the world’s most powerful nations. Service argues that certain aspects of the Russian character and imagination, including xenophobia and a longing to recapture past status and glory, drove the relentless persecution of Muslims in and around Russia.
“This unique work dramatically illuminates the world-historical drama and twenty-first century strategic significance of the Orthodox Russian and Islamic peoples' intertwined epic,” said Charles Hill, research fellow at the Hoover Institution. “Only Robert Service's profound scholarship and statesmanlike insight could pull this story together. Russians will have to turn these pages in order to understand themselves.”
Vladimir Putin’s aspirations for a renewed Russia have contributed to the contemporary attitudes toward the Islamic world. Considering the current state of global affairs, as countries across the world have witnessed a surge of Islamic extremism, Service warns that Russia is “heating a cauldron of resentments,” with consequences that will shape not only Russia’s future but the future of the world at large.
About the Author: Robert Service is a noted Russian historian and political commentator, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford. His biography Trotsky was awarded the 2009 Duff Cooper Prize.
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About the Hoover Institution: The Hoover Institution, Stanford University, is a public policy research center devoted to the advanced study of economics, politics, history, and political economy—both domestic and foreign—as well as international affairs. With its eminent scholars and world-renowned Library & Archives, the Hoover Institution seeks to improve the human condition by advancing ideas that promote economic opportunity and prosperity and secure and safeguard peace for America and all mankind.
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