Hi all,
As somebody with a lot of interest in Russia, I'd thought I'd ask to see whether there are any books that focus on their expansion eastwards towards Siberia and such. Of course in American history there has been a lot written about the push West but I haven't come across any books that detail Russia's expansions and so I'd love to learn more.
I've had a look through your book list but couldn't find anything. Anyway I hope to get some recommendations and I thank you in advance.
There are of course plenty of books about this long and variegated historical process. For a general history of Russian imperial expansion, the relevant bits of Geoffrey Hosking's Russia People and Empire, 1552-1917 and Andreas Kappeler's The Russian Empire: A Multiethnic History. Two important studies on this subject are William Sunderland's Taming the Wild Field Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe and Michael Khodarkovsky's Russia's Steppe Frontier The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500-1800. One of the more interesting cultural histories of Siberia is Yuri Slezkine's Arctic Mirrors Russia and the Small Peoples of the North which takes a long-view of the colonization of Siberia and how Great Russians' perspectives of the land and its peoples changed over time.
Heading even further East than the great books already mentioned, I would totally recommend Ryan Tucker's Empire of Extinction. Solid look at Russia's entry and expansion into the northern Pacific with a big focus on the resources that helped propel/fund the expansion.