Hans Rogger's book is largely devoted to a study of Russian government policy towards the Jews from the mid-nineteenth century until the fall of the monarchy. The book's last two chapters, on the other hand, look at the non-official groups and parties, all of them to a greater or lesser extent antisemitic, which sprang up in the early twentieth century. Lucid in style, balanced in judgement and packed with valuable information, Rogger's book will be an invaluable source for students of late imperial Russia for a long time to come. Almost all the book's chapters are reprinted articles written by Rogger over many years of a distinguished academic career and it is a mark of the author's stature that they fully retain their freshness and their value.

Rogger's first chapter, newly written for this book, looks at Russian antisemitism in the European mirror. It shows that, while Russian policies towards Jews and their emancipation shared much in common with other Euorpean states up to the mid-nineteenth century, subsequently they diverged. Much of Rogger's work is devoted to explaining why this was the case, and why the Russian government became a byword in Europe for its illiberal and brutal treatment of the Jews. Subsequent chapters contain both general surveys of ministerial attitudes and policies towards the Jews, and more detailed studies of the Beilis affair, the issues of land and the peasantry, and the question of emigration.

As already stated, the last chapters on the formulation of Russian rightwing parties and the existence or otherwise of a Russian fascism differ somewhat in subject from the book's core. Rogger concludes that the radical right parties which sprang up around 1905, and in particular the quite powerful Union of the Russian People, were not created by the government, never came fully under its control and, at least initially, favoured not only a very new populist and mobilizational style in politics but also quite radical policies on social and economic questions. By 1908, however, the radical right was in disarray and decline, partly because the government and the traditional élites, now firmly re-established in the saddle, needed it less and could better afford to give vent to their dislike of the new right's crudity and demagogy.