Russian foreign policy : essays in historical perspective

The essays in this volume were originally presented at a confer ence on "A Century of Russian Foreign Policy: Studies in His torical Perspective" at Yale University on April 6-8, 1961. Prepa rations for the conference began in late 1959 and were designed from the start to result in the publication of this book.

Given so broad a theme as Russian policies during the past century, the challenges, temptations, and difficulties of selecting specific topics may well be imagined. The purpose of this venture has been to produce a group of coordinated studies interpreting major aspects of Tsarist and Soviet policies, not to produce a com prehensive handbook. The guiding objective has been to examine the interaction of permanent and transient elements in Russian policies and the extent to which "1917" has signalized a watershed in Russian foreign relations. In the absence of previous work along these lines, the essays seek to offer a new approach to the study of Russian policies, but by no means a complete or definitive state ment. Furthermore-in view of the rather heavy concentration of recent American scholarship on the post-1917 period-they aim at rekindling interest in the antecedents of Soviet policies and di plomacy and in advancing a historical dimension for understand ing their complex development.