Tatar Empire

This is a rich study that makes important contributions to the historiography of the Russian Empire, sharpening our picture of an empire in which lines between colonizer and colonized were far from clear.

* The Middle Ground Journal *

Ross offers a fascinating, well-researched narrative that fills an important lacuna in our understanding of Russia's engagement with Islam. As her clearly clearly shows, Ross engages not only with topics related to the study of Islam but also with some of the key themes of Russian history: Empire and Nation, Islam and Modernity, and the way empire worked by mutual relations and not by a unidirectional vector of power and control. Her study of the Machkaran network of scholars provides an important corrective to an image of Islamic reform dominated by Central Asian and Crimean Jadidism; it is bound tostimulate further research.

-- Orel Beilinson * Euraian Geography and Economics *

Danielle Ross' monograph, Tatar Empire: Kazan's Muslims and the Making of Imperial Russia, offers a substantive and thought-provoking addition to the historiography of both the Russian Empire in general and its relationship with its subject Muslim peoples in particular. . . . Tatar Empire is a fascinating and well-written contribution to the field. It is recommended not only to scholars interested in the history of Russian-Muslim relations, but also to a wider audience of experts interested in questions of empire, religion, and the emergence of nationalism.

-- John M. Romero * Canadian-American Slavic Studies *