Herlihy P. The Alcoholic Empire: Vodka & Politics in Late Imperial Russia

Oxford University Press, 2002. — 242 p.The Alcoholic Empire examines the prevalence of alcohol in Russian social, economic, religious, and political life. Herlihy looks at how the state, the church, the military, doctors, lay societies, and the czar all tried to battle the problem of overconsumption of alcohol in the late imperial period. This book traces temperance activity and politics side by side with the end of the tsarist regime, while showing how the problem of alcoholism continued to pervade Soviet and post-Soviet society.