The Tsar’s Abolitionists

Book excerpt: This book presents a well-documented and important analysis of slavery and slave trade in the Caucasus within the fascinating contexts of Russian empire-building and emerging imperial identity of the Russian state as well as of the local political strategies of Caucasian political actors. The author offers a compelling, multi-layered analysis that is accessible to comparativists since it presents an important comparative case for slavery and its abolition, which helps us understand slavery in the broader contexts of both the ancient and western colonial worlds. The historical detail and use of frequent primary source quotations provide a lively sense of reality to this well-worked regional history with substantial comparative significance.