Toward the Rising Sun: Russian Ideologies of Empire and the Path to War with Japan

What drove Russia to its disastrous war with Japan in 1904? Schimmelpenninck finds the answer in Russia's erratic and confused diplomacy. The key to understanding tsarist involvement in East Asia, he explains, lies in the ideologies of the Russians who competed to impose their visions of imperial destiny on the East. Interweaving intellectual and cultural history, he addresses an important aspect of Russian national identity and helps to elucidate the struggle between East and West that continues in Russia today.