The timely and gripping story of Russia since the collapse of Communism, by The Economist's Moscow bureau chief.
Arkady Ostrovsky is a Russian-born, British journalist who has spent fifteen years reporting from Moscow, first for the Financial Times and then as a bureau chief for The Economist. He studied Russian theatre history in Moscow and holds a PhD in English Literature from Cambridge University. His translation of Tom Stoppard's trilogy, The Coast of Utopia, has been published and staged in Russia.
Ostrovsky has written a real insiders' story of Russia's
post-Soviet "counter-revolution" - an important and timely
book.
*Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag and Iron
Curtain*
How post-Soviet Russia got from there to here makes a gripping
story, told here brilliantly by a writer who watched it
unfolding.
*Tom Stoppard*
A vivid account of the evolution of modern Russia... Ostrovsky
shows how the liberal dreams of the Gorbachev era gave way to the
authoritarian nationalism of the Putin period.
*'Books of the Year', Financial Times*
Moving and brilliantly detailed
*'Books of the Year', TLS*
Essential, timely, and always gripping, Arkady Ostrovsky's book
explains today's reinvention of Russia, from the fall of the USSR
to the rise of Putin, by chronicling the power, the money and the
media with the nuanced analysis of a Moscow veteran and the
narrative flair of a true chronicler of the mysteries of the
Kremlin.
*Simon Sebag Montefiore, author Stalin: The Court of the Red
Tsar*
For a decade Arkady Ostrovsky has been the most insightful foreign
correspondent in Moscow, and in The Invention of Russia he uses his
deep understanding of the country he loves to tell the gripping,
tragic story of its recent history. A brilliantly original,
illuminating and essential book.
*A. D. Miller, Booker-shortlisted author of Snowdrops & The
Faithful Couple*
Russia has always been a place where intellectuals, propagandists,
viziers and prophets have played a grand role. All the gangster,
KGB and oligarch focused analyses of the country's recent history
have overlooked the men of ideas behind the tumultuous changes. Now
comes Arkady Ostrovsky, with a detailed, gripping intellectual
history of the newspaper editors, ideologues, television gurus and
spin doctors who "invented post-Soviet Russia".
*Peter Pomerantsev, author of Nothing Is True and Everything Is
Possible*
Russia's surprisingly free media were once a powerful instrument of
reform. In his illuminating and saddening account, Arkady Ostrovsky
tells how all but a very few have turned instead - deliberately,
cynically, and on behalf of the state - to creating the distorted
image of reality which shapes the country today.
*Sir Rodric Braithwaite, former British Ambassador to Russia and
the USSR*
Arkady Ostrovsky's dazzling book flags up the conflicts over ideas,
morality and national destiny in Moscow politics from Gorbachev to
Putin - a triumph of narrative skill and historical empathy based
on personal experience and rigorous research.
*Robert Service*
For many Russians and most foreign observers the defeat of the coup
against Gorbachev in the summer of 1991 seemed to herald an age in
which liberty would triumph in Russia and the country would join
the Western community of peoples. The turn to authoritarian
nationalism at home and confrontation with the West is a source of
dismay and even despair. Arkady Ostrovsky traces the descent from
the heady days of 1991 with deep local knowledge, a journalist's
fluent style and sharp eye for detail, and wit. He places much of
the blame on those who owned and dominated the media in the fifteen
years after the fall of the Soviet Union.
*Dominic Lieven, author of Towards the Flame and Russia Against
Napoleon*
I was gripped by Arkady Ostrovsky's book. This is essential reading
for anyone wishing to be more precisely informed about Russia
today.
*Ralph Fiennes*
Compelling... Expertly told, with an eye for colourful detail and
interesting personalities, Ostrovsky fashions a strong argument
*The Tablet*
A focused, bracing look at how the control of the media has helped
plot the Russian political trajectory from dictatorship and back
again... Astute, accessible, illuminating
*Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)*
Fast-paced and excellently written... A much needed, dispassionate
and eminently readable explanation
*New York Times*
The reader feels as if on a grand tour, with Ostrovsky at the
elbow. . . He is particularly good at hearing the nuances and
seeing how identity, ideology and personal experience undermined
hopes for democracy and reform.
*Washington Post*
How did Putinism come to pervade the psyche of the nation?...
Ostrovsky's sparkling prose and deep analysis provide not only a
sweeping tour d'horizon of Russia's malaise, but also a description
of the process by which anti-modern ideas combine with postmodern
actions to buttress the country's authoritarian kleptocratic
system.
*Wall Street Journal*
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