Paul R. Josephson is Professor Emeritus of History at Colby College. He is a specialist on the history of big science and technology in the twentieth century. The author of fourteen books, he focuses on environmental and political questions, and on the comparative history of Russia and the US. His most recent book, Nuclear Russia: The Atom in Russian Politics and Culture, is a cultural history of the nuclear age in Russia.

• Introduction: Hero Projects from Lenin to Putin


• Chapter 1: Rails and Resources


• Chapter 2: Mines and Magnates


• Illustrations Part I


• Chapter 3: Water and Empire


• Chapter 4: Nuclear Wonderlands


• Illustrations Part II


• Chapter 5: Bridges of Empire: Putin's Failed Crimean Bridge


• Chapter 6: Nostalgic Engineering: Big Technology and Russia in the Twenty-first Century


• Epilogue: Hero Projects as Nostalgia for the Future


• Acknowledgements


• Note on Sources


• Notes


• Index

In Hero Projects, Paul R. Josephson traces how, over the last one hundred years, the Russian tsars, commissars, and oligarchs embraced megaprojects to create the world's largest empire. Built by peasants, gulag prisoners, and Communist volunteers, the projects are wide-ranging and numerous--including nuclear power stations, pipelines across the tundra, railroads from Europe to the Pacific Ocean, and hydropower stations and canals. Sweeping in scope, Hero Projects establishes the strong continuities in political culture in Russian history; reshapes the meaning of empire, extending it to include internal colonization; and expands environmental and social history through the study of big technology.