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Book review: Bill Bowring, "Law, Rights and Ideology in Russia: Landmarks in the Destiny of a Great Power" Routledge, Abingdon, UK, New York, ny, 2013, 238 pp.
The reviewed book contains very interesting analyses of key historical events of Russian history, with deep and intelligent comments on them. We have mentioned some arguable topics in the author’s narrative, but, in fact, they underlie the extreme complexity of the issues that Professor Bowring dar- ingly tackles. Considering a broad range of different problems, the author con- sciously (or unconsciously) accents the historical perspective, establishing what he calls “landmarks”. However, because of this choice, the philosophical and normative perspectives remain rather in the shadows so that these “land- marks” rather are “snippets”—as smartly remarked by one of the other review- ers of this book.11 Without such aspects, however, it is hardly possible seriously to examine the interconnection between ideologies (in this context I would use this term in the plural) in Russia and the Russian legal order. Hopefully, Professor Bowring will continue his multidisciplinary research on Russian legal culture and, in the near future, decide to publish another volume, describ- ing in more detail the ideas exposed in this excellent book, which can be rec- ommended, highly, to all who are working on Russian law.