New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010. 298 p.* David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, a professor of Russian history at Brock University, Ontario, and the author of the well-known Western monograph "Towards the Rising Sun: Imperial Ideologies and the Path to War with Japan," has published an interesting work on Russia's attitude to the East, or more precisely, to Asia, before 1917. The book was highly praised by the author's American colleagues, who said that it "brilliantly reveals how one Eastern nation looks at its Eastern subjects and the Eastern world beyond", that it is "a solid study of the connoisseur, full of surprises", and, finally, "an insightful and beautiful essay that shows how the world is located in the Middle East." how the Russian view of the East is close to the norms of European Oriental studies and how it differs from them." It is interesting that almost all American reviewers contrast this book with the" contradictory " work of Edward Said 1, who tried to break the stereotypical ideas about the East that are common in the West, and about Western Oriental studies itself. Schimmelpenninck admits that during his youth in Rotterdam, during the Cold War, he believed that " Asia begins right after the Cold War... German border", but "has long since overcome such stereotypes". However, as the epigraph to his work, he chose Stalin's phrase: "I am also Asia", without specifying where it came from. However, it is not so important whether it was actually uttered or the author was the victim of someone's hoax, it is important that with this quote (possibly unreliable), he seems to predetermine his idea of the" Orientocentrism "of Russia and its"Asiaticity". And this is interesting, if only for the fact that his entire research is a fairly detailed, sound and conscientious analysis of the opinions of Europeans and Russians about Russia and the East. Some inaccuracies (such as naming Academician Barthold either Vasily or Vladimir on page 251) are e ... Read more