Sören Urbansky, “Beyond the Steppe Frontier: A History of the Sino-Russian Border” (Princeton UP, 2020)

The fact that the vast border between China and Russia is often overlooked goes hand-in-hand with a lack of understanding of the ordinary citizens in these much-discussed places, who often lose out to larger-than-life figures like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. A book that combines a look at the history...