Sanitizing Moscow

Anna Mazanik is an environmental and medical historian of Russia and a research fellow at the Max Weber Network Eastern Europe in Germany. Born in Moscow, she has studied in Russia, Hungary, Germany, and the United States and holds a PhD in history from Central European University. She lives in Munich.

Sanitizing Moscow is a superb book that focuses on efforts in late imperial Russia to improve public health in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. It deftly shows how social, political, and cultural factors influenced the establishment of a sewage system, the regulation of a public abattoir, and the imposition of a health regime on children.