She specializes in Russian and Soviet history. Her research and teaching interests also include Modern European History, and Comparative Empires. Professor Hirsch is the author of: Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Cornell University Press, 2005).”Toward a Soviet Order of Things: The 1926 Census and the Making of the Soviet Union,” in S. Szreter, H. Sholkamy, and A. Dharmalingam eds., Categories and Contexts. Anthropological and Historical Studies in Critical Demography (Oxford University Press, 2004). “Getting to Know ‘The Peoples of the USSR’: Ethnographic Exhibits as Soviet Virtual Tourism, 1923-1934,” Slavic Review 62, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 683-709.