2008 Recipient

The W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize, established in 2004 and sponsored by Mary Lincoln, is awarded annually for an author’s first published monograph or scholarly synthesis that is of exceptional merit and lasting significance for the understanding of Russia’s past, published in the previous year.

Winner: John Randolph
Title: A House in the Garden: The Bakunin Family and the Romance of Russian Idealism (Cornell University Press)

The selection committee judged John Randolph’s monograph, A House in the Garden: The Bakunin Family and the Romance of Russian Idealism, to be an extraordinary piece of original research, careful analysis, and superb writing. Taking a subject thoroughly investigated by other historians, Randolph proves to be surprisingly innovative and original, not only drawing on a wealth of new information but also presenting a powerful argument about the impact of domestic life on the lives and thinking of the Russian intelligentsia. That argument provides a fresh new perspective on the Russian intelligentsia, going well beyond the traditional historiography that reduced the history of the Russian intelligentsia to an abstract Geistesgeschichte. This volume is also beautifully written, a model of elegant prose that serves as a tribute to the scholar in whose name this award was created.

Honorable Mentions: Jochen Hellbeck, Marianne Kamp, and Ethan Pollock