Sturmer is an expert on authoritarian governments and elegantly articulates the conflict between democracy and autocracy in Russia. Insightful biographical analysis of a truly global figure, Vladimir Putin.
Michael Stuermer is professor of history at the University of Erlangen-Nurnberg. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard, the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, the Sorbonne, the University of Toronto and the Institute for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He has written and edited books on various subjects, including Europe and the Middle East.
An excellent and important work - LITERARY REVIEWAs a scholar, author and journalist of long standing, Stuermer has ranged widely. The broader perspective, historical and geographical, that he brings to this period of Russian history is refreshing. Most of all, his book provides a salutary corrective to the transatlantic assumptions underlying so much writing in English, where the West is a monolith on one side opposed to a Russian monolith on the other - THE INDEPENDENT - Mary DejevskyMichael Stuermer, Die Welt's chief correspondent, has spent years studying, and conversing with, the former KGB officer who has steered Russia's fortunes in the post-Yeltsin years. The result Putin and the Rise of Russia is a priviledged insider's account of the Russian enigma at first hand. It's the best kind of political journalism: history's first draft - THE OBSERVER - Robert McCrumAuthoritative, readable and concise - SPECTATOR - Robert Salisbury'Stuermer shows great understanding of the history and politics in a country in which secret institutions and state organisations still hold considerable sway. He succeeds in giving the reader a better understanding of how politics in Russia works. - EDINBURGH EVENING NEWSWe are lucky to have a commentator with Stuermer's talents and his distinguished journalistic and academic pedigree in Russian affairs - GLASGOW HERALDAn
An excellent and important work - LITERARY REVIEWAs a scholar, author and journalist of long standing, Stuermer has ranged widely. The broader perspective, historical and geographical, that he brings to this period of Russian history is refreshing. Most of all, his book provides a salutary corrective to the transatlantic assumptions underlying so much writing in English, where the West is a monolith on one side opposed to a Russian monolith on the other - THE INDEPENDENT - Mary DejevskyMichael Stuermer, Die Welt's chief correspondent, has spent years studying, and conversing with, the former KGB officer who has steered Russia's fortunes in the post-Yeltsin years. The result Putin and the Rise of Russia is a priviledged insider's account of the Russian enigma at first hand. It's the best kind of political journalism: history's first draft - THE OBSERVER - Robert McCrumAuthoritative, readable and concise - SPECTATOR - Robert Salisbury'Stuermer shows great understanding of the history and politics in a country in which secret institutions and state organisations still hold considerable sway. He succeeds in giving the reader a better understanding of how politics in Russia works. - EDINBURGH EVENING NEWSWe are lucky to have a commentator with Stuermer's talents and his distinguished journalistic and academic pedigree in Russian affairs - GLASGOW HERALDAn
Historian Stuermer attempts to shed light on Vladimir Putin's 2000-2008 presidency and his vision for a new Russia in this thorough but poorly organized and overly complex book. Putin is "a man from nowhere," an understated and effective KGB agent turned city administrator who moved from near-anonymity to the presidency in a few years. Putin is portrayed as both insider and outsider, but untrammeled by the political infighting and corruption of the post-Soviet Russian political machine. He quickly showed his mettle: revitalizing Russian industry, upgrading a decaying military and shifting top positions from the hands of career bureaucrats to former intelligence officers, producing a government of unparalleled obscurity. This book could have been an invaluable guide for Americans-post-Soviet Russia remains a major global force yet is woefully misunderstood by Westerners complacent after "winning" the cold war. But basic facts about Putin and post-Soviet Russia are glossed over, leaving the layperson to wade through a labyrinth of unfamiliar names, government agencies and corporations. Readers who manage to make sense of all this will find that the author's analyses of Russia's changing demographics, its status as a nuclear power and the future of its petroleum-based economy insightful and, often, troubling. (Oct.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
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