A review of the book by T.A. Magsumov: «Secondary vocational school of the Kazan educational district in the conditions of modernization of domestic education at the end of the XIX – beginning of the XX centuries». The authors concluded that this study is a worthy scientific contribution to the study of secondary vocational education of late imperial Russia. The relevance of the work is determined not only by the insufficient knowledge of a number of issues relating to the field of vocational education in the context of modernization changes, but also by the potential opportunity to use the educational experience accumulated in the Russian Empire at the turn of the XIX – XX centuries to solve currently existing problems in the field of vocational education. T.A. Magsumov consistently and thoroughly presents the development of secondary vocational education in the context of imperial modernization processes during the period under study.