The argument about the Russian past became quite hot in the recent years because "power over the past" is one form of political control and legitimization of the current regime. The world-system approach is a view of world affairs and politics in general, one of several historical and present-day applications of Marxism to international relations (Wallerstein et al). This book describes Russian history from the beginning to the present, based on this approach. Speaking about post-soviet history, the author, a well known political scientist and historian, characterizes the period after 1991 as peripheral capitalism of the epoch of restoration (Tendency to depend on one type of economic activity, such as extracting and exporting raw materials to core nations).