Banking on Small Business

Gail Buyske brings a genuinely unusual vantage point to this 2007 Cornell University Press monograph: she's a former Chase Manhattan Bank executive who spent six years chairing the board of Russia's KMB small-business bank. That insider experience shapes a book that challenges microfinance orthodoxy on two fronts — arguing it matters far beyond poverty lending and that it played a real role in building post-Soviet Russian entrepreneurialism. The Cornell imprint signals peer-reviewed rigor, and reviews in Perspectives on Politics and H-Net confirm its scholarly standing. The honest caveat: post-2007 developments in Russian finance — especially the last decade — have made portions of the analysis feel dated, and the subject matter is specialized enough that general readers will struggle to find a foothold. Essential for development economists and Russia specialists; a tough sell for anyone else.