From the Inside Flap

"Performing Justice is a fascinating story, skillfully told and extensively researched, of how theater and revolution got mixed up in early Soviet Russia."—Sheila Fitzpatrick, University of Chicago

"Elizabeth A. Wood traces how a creative educational experiment--the agitation trial--turned into a method of oppression. This excellent book should be read as a primer on the utopian and dystopian possibilities inherent in the Russian Revolution."—Lynn Mally, author of Revolutionary Acts

"Elizabeth Wood's landmark book does not only tell the story of these ancestors of the Moscow show trials of the 1930s. Her interdisciplinary insights from anthropology, sociology, and history show the complexity of didactic, discursive, performative, and ritualistic aspects of these trials. Performing Justice explains a great deal about formative early Soviet practices in general."—Arch Getty, UCLA

About the Author

Elizabeth A. Wood is Associate Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of the M.I.T. Program in Women’s Studies. She is the author of The Baba and the Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia.