"Tracing Russia's course from its beginnings to the present day, Poe shows that Russia was the only non-Western power to defend itself against Western imperialism for centuries. It did so by building a powerful state that molded society to its military needs. Thus arose the only non-Western path to modern society - a unique path neither "European" nor "Asian" but, most aptly, "Russian."" "From the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Russia prevailed...