Alexander Bikbov’s book, Grammar of Order, has sparked a great deal of interest among French readers. A sign of this is a review published in the French academic journal Revue d'Études Comparatives Est-Ouest (Journal of comparative studies East-West).

This book is a result of the author’s many years of study into Russian and Soviet society and also acts as a comprehensive introduction to the historical sociology of concepts. It combines an analysis of large-scale social change with an in-depth study of the links between concepts from the public vocabulary in different historical periods. The author explains the organization of Russian society over the last 20 years, and the social interactions and conflicts that arise around such concepts as ‘middle class’, ‘democracy’, ‘Russian science’, and ‘the Russian nation’.

The book won the 2013-2014 ‘Social Thought’ prize, an award for literature in social sciences and political journalism.