When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, many speculated about the value of Russia's historical experience with market-oriented reform. Liberal Reform in an Illiberal Regime tells how, in 1906, on the eve of world war and cataclysmic revolution, the Russian government undertook perhaps the most sweeping "privatization" in history, radically changing the property rights regime faced by 90 million peasants. Stephen F. Williams's examination...