What do you think?
Rate this book
The Ruble: A Political History
A groundbreaking history of Russia, from empire to the Soviet era, viewed through the lens of its money.
Money seems passive, a silent witness to the deeds and misdeeds of its holders, but through its history intimate dramas and grand historical processes can be told. So argues this sweeping narrative of the ruble's story from the time of Catherine the Great to Lenin.
The Russian ruble did not enjoy a particularly reputable place among European currencies. Across two hundred years, long periods of financial turmoil were followed by energetic and pragmatic reforms that invariably ended with another collapse. Why did a country with an industrializing economy, solid private property rights, and (until 1918) a near perfect reputation as a rock-solid repayer of its debts stick for such a prolonged period with an inconvertible currency? Why did the Russian gold standard differ from the European model? In answering these questions, Ekaterina Pravilova argues that politics and culture must be considered alongside economic factors. The history of the Russian ruble offers an opportunity to explore the political reasons behind the preservation of a supposedly backward financial system and to show how politicians used monetary reforms to block or enact political transformations.
The Ruble is a history of Russia written in the language of money. It shows how economists, landowners, merchants, and peasants understood, perceived, and used financial mechanisms. In her sweeping account, Pravilova interprets the well-known political events of the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries—wars, attempts at constitutional transformations, revolutions—through the ideas and politics of currency reforms and offers a new history of Russia's imperial expansion and collapse.
Money seems passive, a silent witness to the deeds and misdeeds of its holders, but through its history intimate dramas and grand historical processes can be told. So argues this sweeping narrative of the ruble's story from the time of Catherine the Great to Lenin.
The Russian ruble did not enjoy a particularly reputable place among European currencies. Across two hundred years, long periods of financial turmoil were followed by energetic and pragmatic reforms that invariably ended with another collapse. Why did a country with an industrializing economy, solid private property rights, and (until 1918) a near perfect reputation as a rock-solid repayer of its debts stick for such a prolonged period with an inconvertible currency? Why did the Russian gold standard differ from the European model? In answering these questions, Ekaterina Pravilova argues that politics and culture must be considered alongside economic factors. The history of the Russian ruble offers an opportunity to explore the political reasons behind the preservation of a supposedly backward financial system and to show how politicians used monetary reforms to block or enact political transformations.
The Ruble is a history of Russia written in the language of money. It shows how economists, landowners, merchants, and peasants understood, perceived, and used financial mechanisms. In her sweeping account, Pravilova interprets the well-known political events of the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries—wars, attempts at constitutional transformations, revolutions—through the ideas and politics of currency reforms and offers a new history of Russia's imperial expansion and collapse.
576 pages, Hardcover
First published June 27, 2023
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 18, 2024
Outstanding study of the history of Russia's monetary policy and how it reflected social and political changes (or non-changes). Some of it was a little hard to follow for someone not well-versed in finance, but overall it gives an outstanding picture of the problem's with finance, the Ruble and autocracy.
April 13, 2024
Analysis of a currency (currencies?) as policy and economic force. Incredible how much data the author had on issuances of obscure notes.
I’m struck by the way history throws up false friends. Here, the autocrats of imperial Russia asserted that money derived value solely from the Tsar, where the opposition liberals held as a principle money must be backed by gold. A kind of reverse parallel to current debates over floating currencies and the peddlers of gold bars.
I’m struck by the way history throws up false friends. Here, the autocrats of imperial Russia asserted that money derived value solely from the Tsar, where the opposition liberals held as a principle money must be backed by gold. A kind of reverse parallel to current debates over floating currencies and the peddlers of gold bars.
Read
November 24, 2023This was chosen by Peter Brown, Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History, Emeritus at Princeton University and author of Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History (Princeton, 2023) , as one of History Today’s Books of the Year 2023.
Find out why at HistoryToday.com.
Find out why at HistoryToday.com.
September 29, 2024
Excellent history which goes beyond a narrow monetary-financial view of things. Highlights for me were Pravilova's examination of the monetary relationship between the Russian state and its dependencies in the Tsarist period, her featuring of the role of the monetary and fiscal constitution in wider political and constitutional debates, and her coverage of the turbulent and experimental revolutionary period.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews