British journalist and writer on Russia and European security; long a senior editor at The Economist and its Moscow bureau chief from 1998 to 2002; author of The New Cold War (2008); writes the newsletter Active Measures.
Alexander Etkind’s acclaimed Internal Colonization: Russia’s Imperial Experience is the most interesting and controversial book on the country’s cultural history, explaining how Russia has colonised itself, applying the abuse and misrule at home that other countries later applied to their overseas territories.
Five Books interview: the best books on Contemporary Russia
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin offers the best account of the most important and terrible years of the last century, when Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler jointly consigned the territories and people between their two empires to the meat-grinder.
Five Books interview: the best books on Contemporary Russia
Karen Dawisha’s Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? explains what really happened: the sinister fusion of organised crime, intelligence, bureaucracy and business which took shape in St Petersburg in the early 1990s, and then moved to Moscow and took over the entire country.
Five Books interview: the best books on Contemporary Russia
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