A History of Beekeeping and the Honeybee in Contested Eastern European L

Catherine B. Clay is professor emerita at Shippenburg University.

Acknowledgments Introduction Prologue: Land, People, and the Honeybee in Prehistory Part I: Premodern Bee-Centered Landscapes Chapter 1: Political Economies of Wax and Honey in the Rise of Rus and Muscovy from the 8th to the 15th Centuries Chapter 2: The Honeybee and Religiosity: The Hum of Human-Bee Interaction in Prehistory, Kievan Rus, and Muscovy Part II: Transitions: Early Modern Muscovy and Imperial Russia Chapter 3: Beekeeping and Early Modern Empire, 1550-1800 Chapter 4: An Imperial Russian Bee Culture, 1550-1820 Part III: Modern Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, and Post-Soviet Russia Chapter 5: Beekeeping and Bee Culture in the Late Empire to the Great War Chapter 6: The Sovietization of Beekeeping: "The Most Powerful in the World" Chapter 7: Aftermath: Bee Culture in Contemporary Public History Conclusion Bibliography About the Author

"Honey was an essential part of daily life for centuries with its prominence only threatened by the modern sugar beet industry as the preferred sweetener. Catherine Clay provides a service to the field by recovering 1000 years of beekeeping history in East Slavic lands, blending together insights drawn from agriculture and ecology, material culture and trade, and folklore and society to produce a unique study that is long overdue." -- Matthew P. Romaniello, Weber State University