Divided Sovereignty in the Genghisid States as Exemplified by the Crimean Khanate : "Oriental Despotism" à rebours?
Journal: Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers (Hokkaido University)
Year: 2012

In 1957, when Karl Wittfogel published his seminal book on “Oriental Despotism", it was evident from the outset that the author’s arguments were heavily biased against Russia and deeply rooted in the Cold War atmosphere. Wittfogel’s chief argument about the liaison between irrigation and state despotism had to wait for its critics until more recent times, but his treatment of Russia as an example of a “hydraulic society” was immediately perceived as an intellectual aberration. Nonetheless, the n