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4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
The book was interesting but the narrator was too uninspired. I might try reading later in a different format.
Definitely worth plowing through
Excellent historical analysis of Putin’s Russia. 4 stars because it rambles and repeats information at times. Still very worth reading as we face continued cyber warfare from Russia.
Excellent historical analysis of Putin’s Russia. 4 stars because it rambles and repeats information at times. Still very worth reading as we face continued cyber warfare from Russia.
This multi-dimensional review and analysis of Putin's history presents a clear picture of why Putin dances around DumptyTrumpty with glee. While Putin's academics are as dubious as that other guy's, he has survived and thrived in the cut throat world of Soviet/Russian politics. That other guy just bought and cheated his way in. I was briefly in the USSR in the spring of 1989. Political events that we saw on tv while there, posted on the walls in the towns, and demonstrated in the Sverlovsk airport after being stranded there by snow, presaged events to happen over the next few years. Putin has done a masterful job of riding those waves of change, while not quite grasping the import of current changes in Russia. His current running of his two top agents in DC may help keep him in office.
First things first: this is an extremely American book. A valuable one, definitely, gathering a lot of interesting information about Russia's modern tsar, and one that seeks to avoid both demonizing Putin unnecessarily and claiming he's a five-dimensional-chess-master; and yet it sometimes can annoy with its single-mindedly US perspective. It offers a thorough discussion of Putin's career, Russia's situation in the last 30 years, and analysis of how Putin came to power - and, more crucially, how did he keep it and how he managed to turn Russia from an ailing, failing state to a superpower. One should read it with a grain of salt (the authors assume the Western powers are not really infiltrating/attacking/propagandizing in Russia, contrary to what Putin believes... and well, while we may be less effective at that, it's a bit rich to assume we are not doing it), and keep in mind developments that happened after the book was written (especially the (alleged) meddling in US elections and current events in Belarus), but all in all, it is a very valuable overview of a career of a very interesting man.
It's also well-written and well-documented; it's always a joy when the bibliography is half as long as the book itself and the reader can easily dig deeper into topics they found interesting.
It's also well-written and well-documented; it's always a joy when the bibliography is half as long as the book itself and the reader can easily dig deeper into topics they found interesting.