Prince George E. Lvov was born in Dresden in 1861, the same year Tsar Alexander II emancipated the serfs and Russia began to move away from its static society of orders toward a more modern polity. He died in exile in Paris in 1925 with Russia once again in thralldom. Prince L'vov dedicated his life to the improvement of the peasantry's condition and, like many other liberals, hoped to acculturate them to the norms and values of a civil society to attempt to overcome the backwardness of provincial life and ultimately to integrate them as 'citizens" into a modern, vibrant "nation." L'vov...