About the book
Steven Lee Myers, formerly Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times, traces Vladimir Putin's rise from a childhood of poverty in Leningrad through the ranks of the KGB to his consolidation of rule in the Kremlin. Myers shows Putin arriving in office in 2000 as a reformer who cut taxes and expanded property rights for Russians whose experience of democracy after the Soviet collapse had meant crime, poverty and instability. He then follows Putin's turn to a new authoritarianism: crushing revolts, dispatching dissenters and reasserting Russian might, including in Crimea and the Middle East, while keeping the support of many. The biography rests on years Myers spent following Putin's path.
David Heinemeier Hansson, co-founder of Basecamp, was halfway through it in 2017 and called it a great refresher on postwar history, the Cold War and the KGB, and above all on the forces at work in Russia.
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This book has 1 recommendation
David Heinemeier Hansson (Co-Founder/Basecamp)
With Russia fever at Defcon 2, I’ve made it about half-ways through the biography The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin. It’s a great refresher on post-WWII history, the cold war, KGB, but above all, on the forces present in Russia.
There are many lines to draw between Russia’s struggles after the fall of Communism with the fundamental political theories of Fukuyama (Origins of Political Order / Political Order And Political Decay). When taken together, they lend an all the more human and sympathetic story to why things played out the way they did. While still appreciating just how immense the level of brokenness, corruption, and brutality that journey has brought with it.
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