Putin

The monumental biography of the most influential leader on the world stage in the last twenty years.Vladimir Putin is a pariah to the West.He has the power to reduce the West to nuclear ashes. He invades his neighbours, meddles in western elections and orders assassinations. Yet many Russians continue to support him. Under Putin's leadership, Russia has once again become a force to be reckoned with.Philip Short's magisterial biography explores in unprecedented depth the personality of Russia's leader and demolishes many of our preconceptions about Putin's Russia.To explain is not to justify. Putin's regime is dark. But on closer examination, much of what we think we know about him turns out to rest on half-truths. This book is as close as we will come to understanding Russia's ruler.

Magisterial... based on access to a Who's Who of senior politicians, diplomats and intelligence sources. Guardian
An exhaustive profile Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year
Exceptional... unlikely to be matched as a study of the man... It is readable, judicious, critical but balanced and focused on Putin the person rather than on the Putin regime The Irish Times
[A] revealing and compellingly granular biography Times Literary Supplement
Anyone wanting to learn more about Putin's personality, ideas, power and the threat he has come to pose to world peace should read this outstanding biography -- Ian Kershaw

Philip Short is the author of acclaimed biographies of Pol Pot, Mao Zedong and Fran ois Mitterrand. He worked for ten years as the BBC's Paris correspondent and lives in France.

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