Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin's

Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin's Russia

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORSâ€™ CHOICE â€¢ â€œUnforgettable . . . a book about Putinâ€™s Russia that is unlike any other.â€â€”Patrick Radden Keefe,Â author ofÂ Say Nothing

From a Moscow correspondent forÂ The New Yorker, a groundbreaking portrait of modern Russia and the inner struggles of the people who sustain Vladimir Putinâ€™s rule
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In this rich and novelistic tour of contemporary Russia, Joshua Yaffa introduces readers to some of the countryâ€™s most remarkable figuresâ€”from politicians and entrepreneurs to artists and historiansâ€”who have built their careers and constructed their identities in the shadow of the Putin system. Torn between their own ambitions and the omnipresent demands of the state, each walks an individual path of compromise. Some muster cunning and cynicism to extract all manner of benefits and privileges from those in power. Others, finding themselves to be less adept, are left broken and demoralized. What binds them together is the tangled web of dilemmas and contradictions they face.
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Between Two FiresÂ chronicles the lives of a number of strivers who understand that their dreams are bestâ€”or onlyâ€”realized through varying degrees of cooperation with the Russian government. With sensitivity and depth, Yaffa profiles the director of the countryâ€™s main television channel, an Orthodox priest at war with the church hierarchy, a Chechen humanitarian who turns a blind eye to persecutions, and many others. The result is an intimate and probing portrait of a nation that is much discussed yet little understood. By showing how citizens shape their lives around the demands of a capricious and frequently repressive stateâ€”as often by choice as under threat of forceâ€”Yaffa offers urgent lessons about the true nature of modern authoritarianism.

Praise for Between Two Fires

â€œA deep and revealing portrait of life inside Vladimir Putinâ€™s Russia. . . . Yaffa mines a rich vein, describing his subjectsâ€™ moral compromises and often ingenious ways of engaging a crooked bureaucracy to show how the Kremlin sustains its authoritarianism.â€â€”The New York Times Book Review

â€œFew journalists have penetrated so deep and with so much nuance into the moral ambiguities of Russia. If you want insight into the deeper distortions the Kremlin causes in peopleâ€™s psyches this book is invaluable.â€â€”Peter Pomerantsev, author ofÂ Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible
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â€œA stunning chronicle of Putinâ€™s new Russia . . . It celebrates the vitality of the Russian people even as it explores the compromises and accommodations that they must make. . . . This embrace of contradictions is what makesÂ Between Two FiresÂ such a poignant and poetic book.â€â€”Alex Gibney,Â Air Mail
Country USA
Brand Tim Duggan Books
Manufacturer Tim Duggan Books
Binding Hardcover
Color Cream
ReleaseDate 2020-01-14
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781524760595

Country	USA
Brand	Tim Duggan Books
Manufacturer	Tim Duggan Books
Binding	Hardcover
Color	Cream
ReleaseDate	2020-01-14
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781524760595

Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin's Russia