As a comment on Alexander I. we find:
In a fatal way he had destroyed for himself the possibility of a consequential and regulated leadership of Russia on the way of progress and fundamental improvement of her state, destroyed it by being carried away with the chance for participation in the world-events of his time (I. 217).
Chapter XXVII. begins with the sentence: "The attentate of Karakozov, on April 4, 1866, produced a shocking impression upon Alexander and upon the public" (II. 111).
Coming at last to the subject of Professor Kornilov's two volumes, the first criticism one has to make is that the title is misleading. It promises a general history of Russia, but the work is almost confined to Russian institutions and political development in the last century and a half. Foreign relations and wars and expansion of territory are touched upon only in a casual and rather slipshod manner, and there are several errors in statement. Economic development comes out a little better, but not much, and there is nothing about such things as the progress of science, literature, or art. On its real topic the book is valuable. It has been written with evident care and competence, with outspoken liberal conviction, but soberly and without rhetoric. The facts it gives are of consequence in themselves, but it covers too much ground to go deeply into any of them. Being composed for Russians, it presupposes a certain knowledge of Russian history on the part of its readers. It also has a great many proper names, which makes it confusing, especially to a public not already familiar with most of them, and to whom they seem uncouth. In short, Professor Kornilov's work is a scholarly, judicious compendium of an important subject, but it is not likely to prove attractive to many American readers.
The transliteration of Russian words is in the main good, though there are some inconsistencies and a few mistakes, especially in names that were originally foreign, not Russian. Ts is better than tz (for instance, tsar, not tzar), and there is no sense in the form "Nicolas", which is not the English and still less the Russian way of writing the name.
This volume is a reprint of a portion of Professor Hazen's schooltext on Modern European History, minus the illustrations and bibliographies. The book is a war-product. It was the belief that, "To an age like our own, caught in the grip of a world war … there is much instruction to be gained from the study of a similar crisis in the destinies of humanity a century ago", that between the period of the French Revolution and Napoleon and our own there are "not only points of interesting and suggestive comparison, but there is also a line
