Professor of history and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University. The history of the Ottoman empire and the Turkic peoples, especially the Crimean Tatars, has been the primary focus of his studies and research. The author of "The Russian annexation of the Crimea, 1772-1783" (Cambridge University Press, 1970) and has written articles for "Slavic Review", "Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique", "Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas", "Canadian-American Slavic Studies", "Humaniora Islamica", and "Harvard Ukrainian Studies". Editor of the "Bulletin" of the Turkish Studies Association.

This volume is the most comprehensive survey of the Crimean Tatars to appear since V.D. Sirnov's late nineteenth-century account. Professor Fisher presents a detailed analysis of the culture and history of these people from the mid-fourteenth century to the present.

The author clarifies and assesses the myriad problems inherent to a multinational sociey that comprises more than 100 non-Russian ethnic groups living within the borders of the Soviet Union. He discusses the resurgence of nationalist sentiment, the efforts of the Crimean Tatars and others to regain territorial rights lost during the Stalinist era, and the political impact these movements have on contemporary Soviet affairs.