The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
Mar 2012 · Granta Books
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'A luminous study' Luke Harding, Guardian
'Courageous and shocking' Katy Guest, Books of the Year, Independent on Sunday
How did a small-minded, low-level KGB operative come to control the world's largest country and, in an astonishingly short time, destroy years of progress, making Russia once more a threat to her own people and to the world?
Masha Gessen shows that when Vladimir Putin, an unimportant, low-level KGB operative, was rushed to power by a group of Oligarchs in 1999, he was a man without a history. Yet within a few brief years, he had dismantled Russia's media, wrested control and wealth from the country's burgeoning business class, and decimated the fragile mechanisms of democracy. Virtually every opposing voice was silenced, with political rivals and critics driven into exile or to the grave.
Drawing on information and sources no other writer has tapped, Masha Gessen's fearless account charts Putin's rise from the boy who had scrapped his way through post-war Leningrad schoolyards. Now the 'faceless' man who manoeuvred his way into absolute - and absolutely corrupt - power, has become a threat to the stability of the world, and this important book is more relevant than ever.
'A clear, brave book... Gessen offers intriguing details of the scratching, biting, hair-tearing, undersized, brawling boy Putin, refusing to be bullied in the grubby back yards of Leningrad' James Meek, Observer
'Gessen's engaging prose combines a native's passion with a mordant wit and caustic understatement that are characteristically Russian' AD Miller, Daily Telegraph
'Courageous and shocking' Katy Guest, Books of the Year, Independent on Sunday
How did a small-minded, low-level KGB operative come to control the world's largest country and, in an astonishingly short time, destroy years of progress, making Russia once more a threat to her own people and to the world?
Masha Gessen shows that when Vladimir Putin, an unimportant, low-level KGB operative, was rushed to power by a group of Oligarchs in 1999, he was a man without a history. Yet within a few brief years, he had dismantled Russia's media, wrested control and wealth from the country's burgeoning business class, and decimated the fragile mechanisms of democracy. Virtually every opposing voice was silenced, with political rivals and critics driven into exile or to the grave.
Drawing on information and sources no other writer has tapped, Masha Gessen's fearless account charts Putin's rise from the boy who had scrapped his way through post-war Leningrad schoolyards. Now the 'faceless' man who manoeuvred his way into absolute - and absolutely corrupt - power, has become a threat to the stability of the world, and this important book is more relevant than ever.
'A clear, brave book... Gessen offers intriguing details of the scratching, biting, hair-tearing, undersized, brawling boy Putin, refusing to be bullied in the grubby back yards of Leningrad' James Meek, Observer
'Gessen's engaging prose combines a native's passion with a mordant wit and caustic understatement that are characteristically Russian' AD Miller, Daily Telegraph
'A luminous study' Luke Harding, Guardian
'Courageous and shocking' Katy Guest, Books of the Year, Independent on Sunday
How did a small-minded, low-level KGB operative come to control the world's largest country and, in an astonishingly short time, destroy years of progress, making Russia once ...
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About the author
M. GESSEN is the author of several books, among them the Samuel Johnson prize-longlisted The Man Without a Face and Blood Matters: A Journey Along the Genetic Frontier. The recipient of numerous other awards, including a National Book Award for The Future is History, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Carnegie Fellowship, Gessen lives in New York City.
M. GESSEN is the author of several books, among them the Samuel Johnson prize-longlisted The Man Without a Face and Blood Matters: A Journey Along the Genetic Frontier. The recipient of numerous other awards, including a National Book Award for The Future is History, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a...
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