In Patrons of Enlightenment, Colum Leckey presents a history of the Free Economic Society during the reign of Catherine the Great, a brief history that he ties both to the longer history of public associations in Russia, and to the concept of a Russian Enlightenment…. Leckey describes well how the members of the Society developed a strand of Enlightenment thought that moved far away from the usual conceptions of the Enlightenment. He discusses proposals to alter radically peasant agriculture in ways that placed yet more control over Russia’s serfs, from those that wished to create new work units, to those that claimed to speak directly to peasants. And in the end, he describes what probably was the Russian version of the Enlightenment.

Canadian Slavonic Papers

This is a well thought-out and worthwhile volume on a neglected topic. . . .[The book] is well-researched and serves a very useful function in linking Russian intellectual history to the wider tradition of related societies in Europe and America. . . .The book makes an important contribution to enhancing historical understanding of the role of the Free Economic Society in wider Russian life.

Slavonic & East European Review