Refining Russia: Advice Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin

Refining Russia is a pioneering study of the development of advice literature ("how-to" books such as etiquette manuals and brochures on hygiene) in Russia, and of its reception and wider cultural meaning. An absorbing and original exercise in "history of the book," it is also a major contribution to the understanding of Russia's relationship with the West, and of the cultural world inhabited by the Russian intelligentsia.