2022

Honorable Mention: Chris Miller
Title: We Shall Be Masters: Russian Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin (Harvard University Press)

In this highly readable, panoramic book, Chris Miller takes a wide-lens approach to a topic critical to both history and contemporary politics–the account of Russia’s attempts and failures to achieve great power status in Asia. Miller shows how, since Peter the Great, Russian leaders have strived to expand to the East either through colonizing territory or through claiming a sphere of influence. However, Miller demonstrates most of these Asian adventures failed–the Russian public was not interested, the cost was prohibitive, and the strategy failed. Ultimately, Miller concludes, it is Russian cultural commitment to seeing itself as a European power that has kept its Asian dreams unfulfilled.

Winner: Margarita M. Balmaceda