Sanitizing Moscow - (History of the Urban Environment) by Anna Mazanik (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Sanitizing Moscow presents an environmental history of public health reforms in late imperial Moscow between 1870 and 1917. It explores the relationship between Russia's urban modernization and the more-than-human environment in the context of the major social and political changes, triggered by the liberal reforms of the 1860s and 1870s, and the transnational rise of scientific medicine and sanitary technologies. Mazanik is the first to combine environmental history and the history of urban public health in the context of imperial Russia.

Review Quotes

Sanitizing Moscow is a superb book that focuses on efforts in late imperial Russia to improve public health in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. It deftly shows how social, political, and cultural factors influenced the establishment of a sewage system, the regulation of a public abattoir, and the imposition of a health regime on children.--Andy Bruno, Indiana University Bloomington

A deeply researched, creatively argued, and well-written book that will appeal to several different audiences, Sanitizing Moscow offers at the same time fascinating granular detail about everyday life in turn-of-the century Moscow and contributes to larger arguments around Europe's influence on Russia as well as about the global impacts of the revolutions in scientific thinking on disease and sanitation.--Ryan Jones, University of Oregon

About the Author

Anna Mazanik is an environmental and medical historian of Russia and a research fellow at the Max Weber Network Eastern Europe in Germany. Born in Moscow, she has studied in Russia, Hungary, Germany, and the United States and holds a PhD in history from Central European University. She lives in Munich.