This overview of Russian history since its very beginnings includes all the baselines and fundamental problems. Alongside its presentation of political events the book details long-standing issues with roots going back to the Middle Ages. He presents them as contrasting pairs: powerful state and a passive society, privileged elites and a subjugated lower-class, agricultural worlds and city lives, defence and expansion, Russians and non-Russians, population growth and colonisation, extensive agriculture and delayed economic growth, Holy Russia and state religion, high culture and popular culture, Europe and Asia.