What's New in Russian history

Just finished browsing through my new issue of Slavic Review (summer 2012).  It is amazing how very little of academic writing I bother to read any more.  Of the issues articles, I glanced at"Swarm Life and the Biology of War and Peace."  Really, did we need to read that?  Then there are the pages of reviews of the newest books in the profession.  Does anyone really buy books like:  Last Judgment Iconography in the Carpathians?  Is there really something new and important to be told in The Socialist Alternative to Bolshevism:  The Socialist Revolutionary Party, 1921-1939?  It is not hard to understand the challenges faced by the academic publishing industry these days.  Most of this should just be in eformat.