Zhuk’s Nikolai Bolkhovitinov and American Studies in the USSRis a painstakinglyresearched, if not always carefully edited, intellectual biographyof an academic “liberal Westernizer” (158) whorose to become a leading light among Soviet scholars ofNorth American history and politics.

American Historical Review

The author’s style is informal and engaging. Historians, sociologists, and political psychologists— and not only those who study the Cold War—will be enlightened and should find this book very useful in their studies and classes.

Slavic Review

Zhuk’s book is an intellectual biography of Nikolai Bolkhovitinov. . . the book is worth reading, both to follow one Soviet academic through his scientific life during the Cold War and to get a sense of the opportunities that opened up for Soviet historians after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History

Sergei I. Zhuk tells the compelling and largely unknown story of how Soviet Americanists both provided a solid foundation for relations between the Soviet Union and the United States throughout much of the Cold War and drew on their knowledge of the United States to erode the ideological blinders inhibiting reform within the Soviet Union. By focusing on Nikolai Bolkhovitinov—a modest, hard-working scholar who was well-regarded for his integrity by Soviet and American colleagues alike—Zhuk amplifies the ways in which large-scale political and social transformations can begin with the most quiet among us. Anyone wanting to understand why the Soviet Union collapsed would do well by reading this study.

Blair Ruble, Woodrow Wilson Center

This superbly researched book, which mines Soviet and American archives, the Soviet press, and includes a rich trove of personal interviews, makes a significant and original contribution to the cultural history of the Cold War. As a former Soviet Americanist who is presently a leading specialist in late Soviet cultural history, Sergei I. Zhuk is uniquely placed to write this fascinating study.

Denise J. Youngblood, University of Vermont

This study is an unvarnished account of how ‘an idea of America’ shaped Soviet intellectuals, both in their idealism and national ressentiment. Sergei I. Zhuk’s history of the rise and fall of American studies in the Soviet Union—highly personal, yet rigorously academic—contains valuable lessons for today’s observers of Russian–American relations.

Vladislav Zubok, London School of Economics and Political Science