Transforming Peasants is a collection of papers that focuses
primarily on the Russian peasantry between 1861–1930, with brief forays
into Poland, the Kirgiz steppe, and Turkestan. Judith Pallot's introduction
to the volume is informative and concise. She provides the reader with an
excellent overview of each paper and highlights each author's contribution
to the existing debates within the context of Russian and East European peasant
studies. Pallot is well versed in the comparative literature on the study of the
peasantry and notes the degree to which new work on the Russian, Central Asian,
and East European peasantries has been influenced, informed, and expanded by
this comparative material. What unifies the various selections in
Transforming Peasants is that each author is grappling with the way in
which the state, intellectuals, or educated society conceived of or
“imagined” peasants and how these conceptions, in turn, influenced,
shaped, or determined policy aimed at transforming the peasantry.