Book excerpt: This work by the great 19th-century historian is available once again in an acclaimed 1968 translation that conveys the beauty of Kliuchevsky's language and the power of his ideas. In this volume, Kliuchevsky untangles the confused events of the Time of Troubles and the emergence of the Romanov dynasty, and develops his interpretation of the century as prologue to the Petrine reforms. He dramatically underlines the cultural divide between old Russia and the emergent autocracy and the strangely ambivalent relationship between Russia and the West.