The problem of mutual interest and mutual misunderstanding between Russians and Americans can be traced back through the two centuries of their official encounters. The decades of the Cold War worsened the problem by accentuating the differences but also induced the governments of both countries to foster serious study of the “most probable enemy,” the other side. Since the end of the Cold War, new generations of scholars have emerged, unhindered by the political constraints of a bipolar world. They have gradually turned the study of U.S.-Soviet and U.S.-Russian relations into sociocultural research, presenting the history of bilateral relations in a new light. The collection of essays compiled by Choi Chatterjee and Beth Holmgren is a good example of this scholarship.
The book consists of twelve essays grouped into five parts and preceded by the editors’ introduction. David C. Engerman's chapter serves as an additional introduction; he describes the beginnings...