This book is a history of Russian politics during a fifty-year period that saw the transformation of Russia into a European monarchy by Peter the Great. Bushkovitch demonstrates that the interaction of the tsar and the ruling elite was at the core of Russian politics as Peter managed to largely master the contentious elite by a series of compromises, ultimately toward one that favored new men without excluding the aristocrats entirely. The outcome was a new balance of power at the center, and a new Europeanized culture.