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A review by ctgt
The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin by Steven Lee Myers
4.0
I've been fumbling with this review for several weeks and still can't seem to come up with anything resembling coherency so I apologize in advance.
How does a man of modest beginnings and seemingly mundane abilities end up as one of the most powerful men on the planet? This books attempts to answer that question and for the most part does a very good job. Of course with anyone whose background begins with the KGB, can you ever be sure of having the whole story? With Myers working for the New York Times as correspondent and Moscow bureau chief during many of the crucial years of Putin's rise to power this is probably as close as we can get.
Jam packed with information, the beginning plods along almost sedately-family background, a teenager walking into a KGB office to volunteer his services, a far from spectacular career in the KGB. But his career reaches a tipping point when he is named an adviser to Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratically elected mayor of St. Petersburg. It is here in St. Petersburg where he begins to create a network of cronies who follow him throughout the rest of his career.....and it is here where the shady money deals begin. He moves on to the Yeltsin administration and the rest is history.
9/10
How does a man of modest beginnings and seemingly mundane abilities end up as one of the most powerful men on the planet? This books attempts to answer that question and for the most part does a very good job. Of course with anyone whose background begins with the KGB, can you ever be sure of having the whole story? With Myers working for the New York Times as correspondent and Moscow bureau chief during many of the crucial years of Putin's rise to power this is probably as close as we can get.
Jam packed with information, the beginning plods along almost sedately-family background, a teenager walking into a KGB office to volunteer his services, a far from spectacular career in the KGB. But his career reaches a tipping point when he is named an adviser to Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratically elected mayor of St. Petersburg. It is here in St. Petersburg where he begins to create a network of cronies who follow him throughout the rest of his career.....and it is here where the shady money deals begin. He moves on to the Yeltsin administration and the rest is history.
9/10