I received my Ph.D. in Pre-Petrine Russian History at the University of Chicago, 1978. The late Richard Hellie was my adviser. My primary field is the Early Modern social history of Muscovite and Imperial Russia, and I bring legal history, ethnic studies, language, sociology, quantitative studies, and yet other disciplines to bear in my work. My previous Davis Center research project is "Making Sense of Forced Labor Regimes in Western Eurasia and the Americas, 1400s-1800s."