This book uniquely combines the authors’ personal experiences, deep cultural and professional experience of living and working in Russia and the former USSR, and interest and experience with language and computational analysis, to shed light on a highly contemporary question: what is motivating conflict and unrest in Russia and its surrounding countries? How does Russian government suppression of information manifest in practice today, and how does it fit into the historical cultural patte...

**WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR OPINION WRITINGWINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTIONWINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD**The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a more virulent and invincible new strain of autocracy.Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces t...

Fiona Hill and other U.S. public servants have been recognized as Guardians of the Year in TIME's 2019 Person of the Year issue.From the KGB to the Kremlin: a multidimensional portrait of the man at war with the West.Where do Vladimir Putin's ideas come from? How does he look at the outside world? What does he want, and how far is he willing to go?The great lesson of the outbreak of World War I in 1914 was the danger of misreading the statements, actio...

**From renowned foreign policy expert Angela Stent comes a dissection of how Putin created a paranoid and polarized world—and increased Russia's status on the global stage."Putin's World is the definitive guide to understanding the tangled history of post-Cold War Russia and its place in the world. Angela Stent offers a thoughtful, sober, and elegantly-written perspective that could not be more timely." —US Ambassador William J. Burns**How did Russia manage to emer...

In The Future is History Masha Gessen follows the lives of four Russians, born as the Soviet Union crumbled, at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children or grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own - as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths not only against the machinations of the regime tha...

**A PULITZER PRIZE FINALISTA riveting, masterfully researched account of the bold innovators who adapted the Chinese language to the modern world, transforming China into a superpower in the process**What does it take to reinvent the world's oldest living language?China today is one of the world's most powerful nations, yet just a century ago it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, left behind in the wake of Western technology. I...

Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia, who flood social media with disinformation, and circulate false and misleading information to fuel fake narratives and make the case for illegal warfare. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it?Central and Eastern European states, including Ukraine and Poland, however, have been a...

Putin’s war is a “special operation” against modernity. The invasion has been directed against Ukraine, but the war has a broader target: the modern world of climate awareness, energy transition and digital labor. By trading oil and gas, promoting Trump and Brexit, spreading corruption, boosting inequality and homophobia, subsidizing far-right movements and destroying Ukraine, Putin’s clique aims at suppressing the ongoing transformation of modern societies.Alexander Etkind disting...

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it invaded Georgia. Both states are part of Russia's "near abroad" - newly independent states that were once part of the Soviet Union and are now Russia's neighbors. While the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 faded from the headlines in the wake of the global recession, the geopolitical contest that created it did not. Six years later, the spectre of a revanchist Russia returned when Putin's forces invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula, once part of Russia but ...

In the early hours of 24 February 2022, Russian forces attacked Ukraine. The brutality of the Russian assault has horrified the world. But Russians themselves appear to be watching an entirely different war – one in which they are the courageous underdogs and kind-hearted heroes successfully battling a malign Ukrainian foe.Russia analyst Jade McGlynn takes us on a journey into this parallel military and political universe to reveal the sometimes monstrous, sometimes misconstrued at...

Empire, Revolution, and the New TsarIs Russia in the hands of a lunatic?Ever since Vladimir Putin's presidential incarnation, pundits and political analysts have asked this question with increasing frequency. Known for his aggressive politics abroad, and irresponsible despotism domestically, the leader of the world's largest nation holds seemingly limitless control over his people. But Putin is only the latest face of Russian political power: understanding his rule...

You may not be interested in Russia. But Russia is interested in you.Russia's 2022 attack on Ukraine saw confrontation between Moscow and the West spill over into open conflict once again. But Russia has also been waging a clandestine war against the West for decades. Hostile acts abroad, from poisoning dissidents to shooting down airliners, interfering in elections, spying, hacking and murdering, have long seemed to be the Kremlin's daily business. But what is it all for? Why does...