Book review: Heredity, family, and inequality: A critique of social sciences

political elite) of contemporary elite factions. A notable post-Soviet entity is the political elite replenished from the intelligence and security services, while the position of intellectual elite, which had a prestigious status in the Soviet system, is the most problematic one. In general, the elites are not united and their interests are diverse. Taking into account the amount of corruption, it is difficult to assume that these diverse groups, struggling for the interpretation of Russian modernization, understand their responsibility. The volume covers major social issues (with the notable exception of gender), with Nur Kirbaev focusing on education and Oleg Atkov and Guzel Ulumbekova on health. But at least the fact that the difference between life expectancy of men and women in Russia is the highest in the world, with women living 12 years longer, presented by Atkov and Ulumbekova, suggests that the gender dimension is there as well, and calls for an interpretation. The articles exploring Russia’s international relations look both to the West and to the East. Alexander Rahr, investigating what went wrong in relations between Russia and the West in the last two decades, argues that Russia must understand how to use the historical chance, while the West must stop to teach Russia about democracy. This task would entail a lot of self-discipline on both parts, as, according to Andrew Kuchins, after a shift in the global balance of power, Russia does not matter nearly as much to the US as the US does to Russia. At the same time, the West has a huge stake in Russia’s effective engagement in its Eastern dimension and especially Central Asia, the region of primary geopolitical importance being between Russia and China and the ‘old’ Islamic world. In his chapter, Rustem Zhangoza points out that the Soviet collapse, as a transformational event for the region, gave rise to questions about the definitions of borders and the overall status of what can be seen as either ‘the periphery’ or ‘the heartland’. For Central Asia, relations with Russia are in many ways definitive; unfortunately, Zhangozha concludes, a significant section of the Russian society and its political elites are not ready to see these relations in other ways than a civilizational divide. At the same time, Vladimir Yakunin argues in the afterword, Russia has its own identity issues, being neither a banal authoritarian state nor a soft incarnation of the Soviet Union and facing a devastating series of problems. In the 19th century, Russian intellectuals formulated what was called the ‘damn’ Russian question: what is to be done? The question, as the volume aptly demonstrates, still persists today. In Bobo Lo’s words, Russia faces ‘the gargantuan task of modernization’, and the situation remains open-ended. The volume presents the main issues currently faced by the nation, in their overwhelming complexity; introducing new critical perspectives for their treatment, it is a major contribution to a comprehensive understanding of Russia and the post-Soviet world both ‘domestically’ and in a global order of things.