Tsardom of Sufficiency, Empire of Norms: Statistics, Land Allotments, and Agrarian Reform in Russia, 1700–1921 [Book Review]

Abstract

This new study by David Darrow returns to "the peasant question" in Russia, reminding us that there is still much to be learned, despite the attention historians have devoted to this subject over the years. Darrow's is an intellectual history; his focus here is not on the peasantry itself, but on the history of ideas about the Russian peasant economy and the significance of these for rural policy from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. He focuses in particular on the peasant land allotment or nadel: the debates surrounding its significance, the numerous attempts to measure it and standardize it, and the policies designed to ensure peasants had sufficient access to it.

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