So far the book is really a history of the town of Moscow. I am hoping it changes a bit more towards a biography of Ivan the Terrible. :)

This book talks about one of the most interesting economic warefares I have read about. Moscow started out as a city and ended up becoming Russia. Much of the control was established bit by bit through economic means. Russians moved out of Moscow and into towns along the river Volga and ended up outnumbering the original inhabitants. The tax gatherers and administrators out of Moscow followed hard on their heels. Whole towns and stretches of the river were conquored in this fashion.

Ivan the Terrible is dealt with more towards the middle of the book and even after his death his legacy overshadows the rest of the book. He is terrible not as in bad, but as in awesome and dread toward the enemies of Moscow. The common people loved him. Well versed in the Bible but living not by its best precepts and ideals. He was responsible for murder and torture and frankly though very clever was an evil and unhappy man.

The spread of Moscow to the east is interesting in that it was not planned by Moscow but was a result of people moving out to the East searching for economic gain and freedom from high taxes. However, the tax collectors from Moscow followed and they never quite were able to escape the rule of Moscow in the end.

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1026 The March of Muscovy: Ivan the Terrible and the Growth of the Russian Empire 1400-1648, by Harold Lamb (read 27 Sep 1969) The first book by Lamb I read was his Hannibal. Lamb is very good--scholarly sources, accurate, and readable. This book told me of many things I had never thought of before--Siberian expansion and exploration, e.g. It actually begins in the 12th century and the last words of the text are: "Alaska was sold." So many explorations I knew nothing of! Semen Dezhner and Aleksev in 1647 began an exploration which went from "the farthest river of the Arctic shore, the Kolima," to the Amadyr on the Pacific Coast. Looking at the scene on the map makes me wish I could tour Siberia. ( )