The book of Marina Mogilner Homo imperii: the history of physical anthropology in Russia contemplates on unique material of development of the “non-classic” science on man (his types, races, body structure and collective distinctions) in the second half of the 19th and the first third of the 20th centuries. The author analyzes the activity of the Russian anthropology society, the history of founding the corresponding departments in universities, adoption of ideas from the “colonial” anthropology and geography, heated discussions of ethnicity and the “Russian” nature of Pushkin, and so on. The analysis is performed amid the arguments on the ethnographical diversity and integrity of the empire, as well as in the process of adapting the anthropology to the Soviet conditions.