Archibald Cary Coolidge

“ The order of his clauses is apt to be clumsy, there are countless inversions, articles are inserted where they do not belong, and omitted where they do (in Russian there are no articles) , there are many mistakes in the use of prepositions, and words of all kinds are used with not quite their right meaning and sometimes with totally wrong ones and sometimes with no warrant for their existence. The reader is thus kept in a continual state of irritation while he is trying to find out what a sentence means or should mean, or is jarred by some extraordinary expression. ”

“ It promises a general history of Russia, but the work is almost confined to Russian institutions and political development in the last century and a half. Foreign relations and wars and expansion of territory are touched upon only in a casual and rather slipshod manner, and there are several errors in statement. Economic development comes out a little better, but not much, and there is nothing about such things as the progress of science, literature, or art. ”

“ To quote a few examples, we find such terms as "ideational", "hydraulicians", "draining wars", "civilism", "cadet corpuses", "motivated", "the anachronic despoty". Paper money is called "assignations", and we are told about their "course". ”