In this sequel to his landmark study, historian Peter Kolchin compares the transition to freedom after American emancipation with the Russian Great Reforms

“An enlightening comparative history. . . . Often revelatory for those who may think of the emancipation of enslaved Americans as an almost unique event.”—Fergus M. Bordewich, Wall Street Journal

The two largest transitions from unfree to free labor of the many that occurred in Europe and the Americas during the nineteenth century took place in the United States and in Russia. Both occurred in the 1860s, and in both the former slaves and serfs strove to maximize their autonomy and freedom while the former masters worked to preserve as many of their prerogatives as possible. Both were partially—but only partially—successful.

In this magisterial and long-awaited work, historian Peter Kolchin shows that a more radical break with the past was possible in the United States than in Russia, with the Southern freedpeople coming to enjoy republican citizenship, whereas Russian peasants remained subjects rather than citizens. Both countries saw conservative reactions triumph in the late nineteenth century. While this conservatism was common in most emancipations, it was especially strong in Russia and the American South, in part as a reaction against the major efforts to restructure the social order that went by the name of Reconstruction in the United States and the Great Reforms in Russia.

Peter Kolchin is the Henry Clay Reed Professor, emeritus, at the University of Delaware. His books include Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom; American Slavery, 1619–1877; and First Freedom: The Responses of Alabama’s Blacks to Emancipation and Reconstruction. He lives in Newark, DE.