Customer Reviews

Treasure of the Land of Darkness: The Fur Trade and its Significance for Medieval Russia

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Dwspite its seemingly limited subject, this is an excellent survey of the economic, and therefore political, history and geography of northern Russia before 1600. The author claims that Bolgar blocked Rus trade in the lower and middle Volga, a 'fact' that does not seen to have reached the standard Viking historians. There is no adequate discussion of the relation between the fur trade and other branches of trade, especially the slave trade, which many authors consider more inportant. What we need now is a similar study of the area south of Moscow. I have not seen this cited in other books, which is odd, since it appears to be an excellent survey.