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E-book
Author Schrad, Mark Lawrence, author.

Title Vodka politics : alcohol, autocracy, and the secret history of the Russian state / Mark Lawrence Schrad
Published Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2014]
©2014

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Description 1 online resource (xvii, 492 pages) : illustrations
Contents Vodka politics -- Cruel liquor: Ivan the Terrible and alcohol in the Muscovite court -- Peter the Great: modernization and intoxication -- Russia's empresses: power, conspiracy, and vodka -- Murder, intrigue, and the mysterious origins of vodka -- Why vodka? Russian statecraft and the origins of addiction -- Vodka and the origins of corruption in Russia -- Vodka domination, vodka resistance ... vodka emancipation? -- The pen, the sword, and the bottle -- Drunk at the front: alcohol and the imperial Russian army -- Nicholas the Drunk, Nicholas the Sober -- Did prohibition cause the Russian revolution? -- Vodka communism -- Industrialization, collectivization, alcoholization -- Vodka and dissent in the Soviet Union -- Gorbachev and the (vodka) politics of reform -- Did alcohol make the Soviets collapse? -- The bottle and Boris Yeltsin -- Alcohol and the demodernization of Russia -- The Russian cross -- The rise and fall of Putin's champion -- Medvedev against history -- An end to vodka politics?
Summary "In Vodka Politics, Mark Lawrence Schrad argues that debilitating societal alcoholism is not hard-wired into Russians' genetic code, but rather their autocratic political system, which has long wielded vodka as a tool of statecraft. Through a series of historical investigations stretching from Ivan the Terrible through Vladimir Putin, Vodka Politics presents the secret history of the Russian state itself-a history that is drenched in liquor. Scrutinizing (rather than dismissing) the role of alcohol in Russian politics yields a more nuanced understanding of Russian history itself: from palace intrigues under the tsars to the drunken antics of Soviet and post-Soviet leadership, vodka is there in abundance."--Publisher's website
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Drinking of alcoholic beverages -- Political aspects -- Russia -- History
Drinking of alcoholic beverages -- Political aspects -- Soviet Union -- History
Drinking of alcoholic beverages -- Political aspects -- Russia (Federation)
Vodka industry -- Political aspects -- Russia -- History
Vodka industry -- Political aspects -- Soviet Union -- History
Vodka industry -- Political aspects -- Russia (Federation)
Prohibition -- Political aspects -- Russia -- History
Prohibition -- Political aspects -- Soviet Union -- History
Prohibition -- Political aspects -- Russia (Federation)
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Security.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Services & Welfare.
Russia
Russia (Federation)
Soviet Union
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 0199389470
9780199389476
9780199912452
0199912459