Excerpt from The Russian People Hen the average man, in search of information on a subject which he knows little or nothing at, has recourse to the best-known authorities, his enthu siasm will often be damped by finding that the authors have taken for granted a certain foundation of elementary knowledge on his part, which he lacks. He finds himself at sea; he is met at every turn by allusions to things which he is supposed to know, and which he is ignorant of. The authors he has consulted have not thought it worth while to repeat what they suppose any one interested in the subject is bound to know. Thus the student sometimes finds himself in the position of a foreigner to whom an Englishman talks of the game of cricket under the impression that he is talking to a fellow Englishman. Hopelessly puzzled, he will abandon his study of this particular subject and turn his attention to other things. This is especially true with regard to the study of Russian affairs. The authorities as a rule know so much more than the people who are likely to consult them that the student is confused and baffled. If he reads books dealing with Russian commerce, politics administration, or literature, he will often find that a certain minimum knowledge of Russian history is taken for granted. Now, it is just this knowledge that he lacks. If, on the other hand, he takes up a volume of Russian history, he will often come across allusions to Russian life and literature which mean nothing to him. I am far from blaming writers of such books for not supplying the lack. A man who writes a book for the serious students of a subject, say the game of cricket, must necessarily assume that the student will be already aware that the game is played with a. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.