Eastern destiny : Russia in Asia and the North Pacific /

While the US expanded westward, reaching not only the Pacific coast but also Hawaii and Guam, Russia's destiny lay eastward. Bursting out of the confines of Muscovite Russia and finding easy passage through the low-lying Urals, it ran across the frozen plains of Siberia, finally reaching the Pacific in the 17th century. Russian explorers then moved on to Alaska and some parts of what is now the west coast of the US. March's book, as he himself says, offers no new information or perspectives about this great saga of Russian history. Based solely on secondary sources, it is, in the author's own words, "a rational narrative" and an "outline history." As such, it often tends to be too factual and dry, without conveying the sense of adventure and romance and of Russia's eastward destiny that many Russian explorers felt when they embarked on those arduous journeys. March is correct, though, in pointing to the dilemmas that Russia, and later the Soviet Union, faced when confronted with the possibility of a two-front war, one in Europe and the other in Asia. Thus, as he perceptively remarks, the Russo-Japanese Neutrality Pact of 1941--characterized as "the strange neutrality" by George Lensen--had "greater impact on the Soviet fortunes in World War II" than any other document. Recommended for all libraries, both graduate and undergraduate. S. K. Gupta; Pittsburg State University