Ekaterina Pravilova, The ruble: a political history, Oxford University Press, 2023, 560 pages 

One of the most persistent stereotypes about Russia presents its past as a series of attempts to build an anti-capitalist utopia, whether under the tsars or the communists. Most famously, the Soviet Union retained some forms of market relations, but its industrialisation programme rejected the profit motive, free competition and a mobile labour force. Recent studies by historians Tracy Dennison, Yanni