In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Russian empire made a dramatic advance on the Pacific by annexing the vast regions of the Amur and Ussuri rivers. Although this remote realm was a virtual terra incognita for the Russian educated public, the acquisition of an 'Asian Mississippi' attracted great attention nonetheless, even stirring the dreams of Russia's most outstanding visionaries. Within a decade of its acquisition, however, the dreams were gone and the Amur region largely abandoned and forgotten. In an innovative examination of Russia's perceptions of the new territories in the Far East, Mark Bassin sets the Amur enigma squarely in the context of the Zeitgeist in Russia at the time. Imperial Visions demonstrates the fundamental importance of geographical imagination in the mentalite of imperial Russia. This 1999 work offers a truly novel perspective on the complex and ambivalent ideological relationship between Russian nationalism, geographical identity and imperial expansion.

An intellectual/historiographical examination of the fundamental importance of geographical imagination in the mentalite of imperial Russia, first published in 1999.
Reviews
'Mark Bassin's Imperial Visions is a work that will be appreciated by specialists in a wide array of disciplines. This is a masterful, groundbreaking book that combines intellectual history and geography in a way that has not been done before, shining a new light on the issues of Russian identity and the interrelationship between exploration, conquest and nationalism.' H-Net
'... a solid work of scholarship ... a detailed study for the specialist reader, and a definitive work on a generally neglected aspect of nineteenth-century empire-building which may prove one day to be of great geopolitical importance.' Asian Affairs



Book Information
ISBN 9780521026741
Author Mark Bassin
Format Paperback
Page Count 348
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 531g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 150mm * 22mm