Why the French Don'tLike Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space, John Bowen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), x, 290 pp. + illustrations, notes, glossary, bibliography, index.

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS in early twentieth-century Russia, the Don Cossacks, and-paralleling Ssorin-Chaikov's essay-the creation of a Russian discourse about "traditional violence" in the Caucasus. Section three focuses on institutions. Ekaterina Pravilova contributes a fascinating essay on the very understudied topic of shifts in monetary policy between St. Petersburg and the Kingdom of Poland up to 1866. Aleksei Volvenko considers why the zemstvo was introduced in the Don territory but then abolished in 1882 (the only instance of this happening). Other essays discuss the "Muslim question" in late Imperial Russia, the influence of the Duma in the developing of national elites, and relations between the Provisional Government and Finland. It is interesting that no essay in the section on institutions strays into the Soviet period, an era when enormous institutional change took place (even accepting the editors' end date of 1930). The final section, "Designs," was for this reader the least satisfying: overly abstract, theoretically ambitious but ultimately producing more jargon than enlightenment. Mark von Hagen's contribution on federalism as a possible "re-imaging" of empire is an exception here, but the essay remains more of an overview and call for further research than a solid piece of new scholarship. Taken as a whole, however, this volume has something for everyone interested in Russia or problems facing any empire. The theoretical sophistication, careful research, and often novel insights of the essays here will no doubt recommend the volume (available in paperback!) for use in graduate seminars.