This collected volume, edited by Roy Suny and Terry Martin, looks at how Soviet state managed to create a multiethnic empire in its earlt years, from the end of the Russian Revolution to the end of World WAr II. It brings together the newest research on a wide geographic range, from Russia to central Asia. A State of Nations gives a very useful overview of the actual situation of American studies on empire and nation-making from the late tsarist empire to the end of the Stalin era.