The man without a face

No cover — Masha Gessen: The man without a face (2012, Riverhead Books)

314 pages

English language

Published Dec. 6, 2012 by Riverhead Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-59448-842-9
OCLC Number:: 741538456

(1 review)

This is the chilling account of how a low-level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the Russian presidency and, in an astonishingly short time, destroyed years of progress and made his country once more a threat to her own people and to the world. Handpicked by the "family" surrounding an ailing and increasingly unpopular Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin seemed like a perfect choice for the oligarchy to shape according to its own designs. Suddenly the boy who had stood in the shadows was a public figure, and his popularity soared. Russia and an infatuated West were determined to see the progressive leader of their dreams, even as he seized control of media, sent political rivals and critics into exile or to the grave, and smashed the country's fragile electoral system, concentrating power in the hands of his cronies. As a journalist living in Moscow, Masha Gessen experienced this history firsthand, and …

This is the chilling account of how a low-level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the Russian presidency and, in an astonishingly short time, destroyed years of progress and made his country once more a threat to her own people and to the world. Handpicked by the "family" surrounding an ailing and increasingly unpopular Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin seemed like a perfect choice for the oligarchy to shape according to its own designs. Suddenly the boy who had stood in the shadows was a public figure, and his popularity soared. Russia and an infatuated West were determined to see the progressive leader of their dreams, even as he seized control of media, sent political rivals and critics into exile or to the grave, and smashed the country's fragile electoral system, concentrating power in the hands of his cronies. As a journalist living in Moscow, Masha Gessen experienced this history firsthand, and she has drawn on sources no other writer has tapped.--From publisher description.

2 editions

Sally Strange reviewed The man without a face by Masha Gessen

I learned so much

5 stars

As an American, this was a fascinating and educational read. It fills in the blanks left by our myopic media and provides context to events that were quite mysterious and unexpected at the time that I was living through them.

To have finished the book, which closes describing scenes in Moscow in December 2011, when Alexei Navalny was leading hopeful protests against the Putin regime, on the same day that the news of Navalny's death in prison reached me, seems cruel, but entirely fitting. In these passages, Gessen notes that Putin and his allies were slow to recognize the danger they were in, and predicted that when they did, they would lash out violently, like a cornered animal. Perhaps with a terrorist attack, like the ones the KGB engineered against the Russian people in 1999 - 2000, when Putin was first running for president. But no. Putin started a war.

Subjects

Politics and government
Presidents

Places

Russia (Federation)