About eight years ago, I interviewed Steven Sabol about his book, The Touch of Civilization. It was the first book I was aware of that compared the US’ and Russia’s efforts to civilize its colonized people, specifically the Sioux and Kazakhs. Here were two continental empires with two vastly different political systems that spread across a vast landmass to encounter, subjugate, remove, or outright kill indigenous populations along the way. Longtime listeners know that the overlapping trajectories of the United States and Russia have been of particular interest to the Eurasian Knot. How did a republic and an autocracy approach its indigenous subjects? How did Sioux and Kazakhs resist and accommodate colonization? And what does it all say about the American and Russian imperialism at the heart of each’s historical DNA? Given current events, we figured it was a good time to revisit our conversation with Steven.

Guest:

Steven Sabol is a Professor of History at North Carolina University in Charlotte. He’s the author of “The Touch of Civilization” Comparing American and Russian Internal Colonization published by University Press of Colorado.

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