I am interested in global and comparative approaches to history. The focus of my research and teaching is Modern Europe and Russia, but I also look beyond these areas, in order to incorporate Russia and Europe into a broader comparative context. I am particularly interested in social and economic history and the history of labor, gender relations, peasantries, and childhood. My research on peasants has produced a number of articles and essays in academic journals, collections, and encyclopedias and led to the publication of A Life under Russian Serfdom: Memoirs of Savva Dmitrievich Purlevskii, 1800-68 (Central European University Press, 2005), which is now widely used in classes. These publications address peasant migrant labor, peasant economic and social activities, peasant culture and state policies regarding peasants. My research has culminated in a book, Russia’s Factory Children: State, Society, and Law, 1800-1917, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in late 2009, as well as a comparative article on labor protection legislation in Imperial Russia and Europe. Russia’s Factory Children explores the role of children in the Russian workforce from the beginning of industrialization until the 1917 Revolution; it examines their everyday lives, working conditions, hours, wages, physical risks and health, and the laws that established children's labor and living standards. The study’s analysis concerns social and legal history and offers a comparative European context. Currently I explore peasant economic ecological mentality. In this research, I attempt to advance one main proposition: the enormous potential usefulness of utilizing peasant economic ecology as a category of analysis of the rural economy. The research examines several rural areas in Europe, Asia and Africa.