Maria Salomon Arel’s monograph presents a fascinating study of English trading activities in Russia, charting the course of the Muscovy Company’s ventures amidst the turbulent times of the seventeenth century. It challenges the traditional narrative of the Muscovy Company’s commercial decline in the face of ascendant Dutch competition, and draws on the rich source material of British and Russian archives, including the neglected (literally) London Port Books, to show that the English were not merely surviving but thriving in the early years of the Romanov rule. . . . Arel presents a compelling and captivating narrative of the success and importance of the Muscovy Company’s trade in seventeenth-century Russia. Confronting the outdated (and often unsupported) assumptions of the traditional narrative, Arel skillfully shapes her argument armed with an impressive arsenal of archival material. The monograph, which took the long road to completion, is exemplary of a great work of history. Scholars and students of early modern trade and adventure, merchant diasporas, and Anglo-Russian relations will find it of immense interest.

Journal of British Studies

In this detailed and engaging study, Maria Salomon Arel argues that the English merchants of the Muscovy (Russia) Company had a substantial trading presence in Russia, and that the Company thrived in the first half of the seventeenth century. She is arguing against previous scholarship that held that, by the turn of the century, the Dutch had supplanted the English trade presence in Russia, never to resume their place.… Arel’s robust treatment of a very early chapter in a long history of Anglo-Russian commerce—involving licit and illicit exchanges in an age where the boundaries between them were both in formation and not what they are today—lays important groundwork and points us toward further inquiry.

The Russian Review

This book forcefully and convincingly argues for the importance of the English trade in Russia in the first half of the seventeenth century. It shows that the English Muscovy Company thrived in the Russian market in the period after the Time of Troubles, despite stiff competition with the Dutch, and sometimes in close collaboration with them. The author tells a story that is begging to be told, with flare and accuracy, in engaging prose, and relying on a very impressive primary source base from English and Russian archives.

Nikolaos Chrissidis, Southern Connecticut State University

Based upon original research in both English and Russian archives, Maria Salomon Arel, English Trade and Adventure to Russia in the Early Modern Era: The Muscovy Company, 1603-1649 superbly analyzes the often underestimated history of English merchants in Muscovy in the first half of the seventeenth century through the lens of an informed appreciation of both English and Russian history within the much broader, conceptually sophisticated and entirely convincing context of globalizing world commerce from the New World to the Old, not only from Massachusetts to England to Russia, but also to the Mediterranean, the Levant, and Asia. Thus this excellent and impressive monograph will interest not only specialists in early modern English and Russian history, but all historians studying early modern international trade and world history.

Charles J. Halperin, Independant Scholar

In this splendid book, Maria Salomon Arel completely rewrites the history of Russian-English trade relations in the seventeenth century. She upends the accepted narrative about the demise of the English trade monopoly and the triumph of Dutch merchants in the first half of the seventeenth century. Equally at home in the English and Russian sources, and drawing on previously untouched material from Russian archives, she conveys a multidimensional picture of the people, politics, and economic considerations that motivated negotiations and maneuvers on both sides. Further, she uncovers an unsuspected story of Russia’s dynamic participation in the burgeoning global trade networks of the early modern period. Traditionally written off as an isolationist backwater unfriendly to trade, Muscovy emerges in Arel’s clear, lively account as an active player in networks of global exchange. Populated with a spectacular cast of characters and full of surprises, this book offers a fun, fascinating and up-to-date reassessment of Russia’s place in the early modern world.

Valerie A. Kivelson, University of Michigan

Based on a treasure trove of underutilized and previously unknown archival documents in both Moscow and London, Maria Salomon Arel has given us an exciting new study of genuine originality. Her book does what the most important and influential works of history do: tackles a neglected topic, revises old narratives, introduces new sources, and presents it all with elegant prose and powerful argumentation. This book will not only fill a lacuna in the history of the Muscovy Company in the early seventeenth century—reason enough to consider it an important contribution—it will shine new light on a range of topics in early modern Russian, English, Dutch, Mediterranean, and Near Eastern economic and diplomatic history. The book is a triumph of scholarship—the product of a careful and imaginative historian.

Russell E. Martin, Westminster College