Advanced Russian Through History is a Russian reader for intermediate and advanced students of Russian and heritage learners of Russian. The book consists of 36 chapters focusing on the history of Russia, from Kievan Rus' to the post-Soviet era. Each chapter features a written text, a brief lecture on the accompanying CD-ROM, and web-based learning tasks designed to promote students' abilities to understand and produce argument in the style of scholarly discourse, both in speech and in writing.
Great book for an advanced reader. The author suggests that the user have the equivalent of 350 hours of classroom instruction in Russian. The reader should have a intermediate to high level of reading proficiency. The book consists of 36 chapters of scholarly text (with a few definitions of selected words at the bottom of the pages) covering the history concerning Russia from the late 800's up to the year 2000. Included also, are a few maps to help follow the texts. Online activities included are various types of questions, glossaries, "mini-lectures" (3-7 minutes in length), and a list of related films.
I use this textbook for my 3rd year Russian civ class. It's a challenging read for students who haven't spent time abroad, but having them work through content really raises the level of discourse so much more than more time spent with a grammar book.