In a previous publication I demonstrated the enormous value of Russia's overseas commodity exports to Great Britain's industrial development during the second half of the eighteenth century. Yet when value is determined only by sheer volume of commodities, the determination, even when supported by impressive shipping data, might not be as convincing as a determination of value based on other factors, for example, on money value.

Scholars continue to argue over specific aspects of Anglo-Russian trade, over the accuracy of British commercial records, and over the degree of British involvement in Russian overseas commerce. This article addresses these issues and suggests that historians should not forget to look at the broad trends in the value of that trade when they debate specific aspects of the commercial relations between the two nations. Moreover, it seems to me that value comprehended in English pounds sterling or Russian rubles would further demonstrate the significance of Russia's overseas commodity trade to Great Britain, since such a demonstration would rest, as it were, on a surer foundation.

A directory of all archives and manuscript repositories in the USSR with a comprehensive bibliography of finding aids has long been needed by researchers. Yet one of the most highly centralized, state-run archival systems in the world, with its subsidiary strong publication division under the world's first specialized research institute for archival affairs, has still not seen fit to provide researchers with such a basic reference aid. Now, significantly not from Moscow but from the western Ukrainian center of Lviv, comes the second edition of a research handbook of all-union scope that more closely approaches that optimal directory than any other single volume available. The expanded second edition still does not cover all repositories by any means, or even all of the largest and most important manuscript-holding institutions in some areas. Its bibliography remains far from comprehensive and is awkwardly presented.

At the end of Dr. Zhivago, Zhivago's old friends sit overlooking Moscow and read together a collection of his writings, compiled through the efforts of his devoted and somewhat mysterious half-brother. For all the dark times depicted in the novel, it ends with a dual affirmation of the power of art and of the spirit to survive. Zhivago's writings endure not only by virtue of having been created and not only in the minds of those who know them, but on paper as well. In this respect Boris Pasternak's novel offers an intriguing contrast to one completed in a bleaker period, The Master and Margarita. In Mikhail Bulgakov's novel the problem of preserving the protagonist's writing and conveying it to readers is neither as simple nor as successfully resolved, despite intervention of a more mysterious, even supernatural, sort.