The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin
by Steven Lee Myers
View on GoodreadsFrom a poor Leningrad childhood and the KGB to near-total control of the Russian state. Myers covered that rise as the New York Times Moscow bureau chief, and you watch Putin build a system of cronyism dressed in nationalist language, through the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Core ideas
- St. Petersburg to Moscow: After the KGB, his political career began beside Anatoly Sobchak and rose inside Yeltsin's administration as Yeltsin faded in 1999.
- The crises: Chechnya, the Moscow theater siege, Beslan and the Kursk disaster tested his rule, and his hard line on terrorism built his early popularity.
- Control, then cronyism: State television, oil and gas monopolies and manipulated elections cemented his hold, and the book argues the corruption is presented as authentically Russian.
Published2014
Pages592
ISBN9780307961617
ReadFeb 2023
