Russians: The People behind the Power
- ISBN-10
- 1455509655
- ISBN-13
- 9781455509652
- Category
- Political Science
- Pages
- 384
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2014-02-18
- Publisher
- Twelve
- Author
- Gregory Feifer
Description
From former NPR Moscow correspondent Gregory Feifer comes an incisive portrait that draws on vivid personal stories to portray the forces that have shaped the Russian character for centuries-and continue to do so today. RUSSIANS explores the seeming paradoxes of life in Russia by unraveling the nature of its people: what is it in their history, their desires, and their conception of themselves that makes them baffling to the West? Using the insights of his decade as a journalist in Russia, Feifer corrects pervasive misconceptions by showing that much of what appears inexplicable about the country is logical when seen from the inside. He gets to the heart of why the world's leading energy producer continues to exasperate many in the international community. And he makes clear why President Vladimir Putin remains popular even as the gap widens between the super-rich and the great majority of poor. Traversing the world's largest country from the violent North Caucasus to Arctic Siberia, Feifer conducted hundreds of intimate conversations about everything from sex and vodka to Russia's complex relationship with the world. From fabulously wealthy oligarchs to the destitute elderly babushki who beg in Moscow's streets, he tells the story of a society bursting with vitality under a leadership rooted in tradition and often on the edge of collapse despite its authoritarian power. Feifer also draws on formative experiences in Russia's past and illustrative workings of its culture to shed much-needed light on the purposely hidden functioning of its society before, during, and after communism. Woven throughout is an intimate, first-person account of his family history, from his Russian mother's coming of age among Moscow's bohemian artistic elite to his American father's harrowing vodka-fueled run-ins with the KGB. What emerges is a rare portrait of a unique land of extremes whose forbidding geography, merciless climate, and crushing corruption has nevertheless produced some of the world's greatest art and some of its most remarkable scientific advances. RUSSIANS is an expertly observed, gripping profile of a people who will continue challenging the West for the foreseeable future.
Get the book
Similar books
-
Russia and the Russians: A History
By Geoffrey A. HoskingChronicles the history of the Russian Empire from the Mongol Invasion, through the Bolshevik Revolution, to the aftereffects of the Cold War.
-
Russians in China. Shanghai D-917 Police Applicants: 1930-1942
By Kirill ChashchinThe detailed biographies of Russian immigrants who served Russian Regiment, Shanghai Volunteer Corps, in 1930s-1940s. Includes police background investigation reports on applicants, and the alphabetical index in Russian language.
-
War and Peace (Vintage Classic Russians Series)
By Leo Tolstoi'A joy to reada The sense of actually being in the skin of these people is phenomenally, brilliantly rendered by this translation' Simon Schama The Vintage Classic Russians Series- Published for the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Russian ...
-
The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!: Pageantry and Patriotism in Cold-War America
By Richard M. FriedThe author presents a look at a time "when patriotic observance was a matter of high seriousness and legislated pageantry," with a special section on an event in Mosinee, Wisconsin, staged by the American Legion, where the town was "invaded ...
-
The Russian Understanding of War: Blurring the Lines between War and Peace
By Oscar JonssonThis book analyzes the evolution of Russian military thought and how Russia's current thinking about war is reflected in recent crises.
-
Blacks, Reds, and Russians: Sojourners in Search of the Soviet Promise
By Joy Gleason CarewInterviews with the descendents of figures such as Paul Robeson and Oliver Golden offer rare personal insights into the story of a group of emigrants who, confronted by the daunting challenges of making a life for themselves in a racist ...
-
Rich Russians: From Oligarchs to Bourgeoisie
By Elisabeth SchimpfösslNevertheless, as Elisabeth Schimpfössl shows in this book, their stories reveal a bourgeois existence that is distinct in its circumstances and self-definition, and far more complex than the caricatures suggest.
-
Ethnic Relations in Post-Soviet Russia: Russians and Non-Russians in the North Caucasus
By Andrew FoxallBy focusing on the 'everyday' and the local, this book presents an understanding of ethnic relations in post-Soviet Russia.
-
The Russians: An Interpretation
By Richardson WrightAbout the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work.
-
The New Russians
By Hedrick SmithWalker, Martin.The Harper Independent Traveler: The Soviet Union. NewYork: Harper & Row, 1989. ——. The Waking Giant. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986. Yanov, Alexander. The Russian Challenge.Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Yeltsin, Boris.