The way the West’s obsession with Vladimir Putin helps prevent it from understanding Russia

It is impossible to think about Russia today without thinking of Vladimir Putin. A lot more than any other major national innovator, he personifies his nation in the eyes of the outside globe, and dominates Traditional western media coverage of it to a fantastic level. In Russia itself, he is likewise the center of interest for detractors and supporters alike. But simply because Tony Solid wood argues, this mind-boggling focus on the leader about Russia Without Putin: Money, Power as well as the Misconceptions of the New Cold War and his character means that we understand Russia significantly less than we ever do before. An excessive amount of attention is definitely paid to the man, and not enough to the united states outside the Kremlin’s walls.

With this timely and provocative analysis, Wood looks beyond Putin to explore the profound adjustments Russia has undergone since 1991. In the process, he challenges many of the common assumptions made about modern Russia. Though commonly viewed as an ominous go back to Soviet authoritarianism, Putin’s rule should instead be observed as a direct continuation of Yeltsin’s in the 1990s. And even though a lot of Russia’s problems today are blamed on legacies from the Soviet previous, Wood argues which the core top features of Putinism-a predatory, authoritarian elite presiding more than a greatly unequal society-are integral to the system occur place after the fall of Communism.

What kind of country has emerged from Russia’s post-Soviet transformations, and where might it go ahead long term? Russia Without Putin culminates within an arresting analysis of the country’s foreign policy-identifying the true power dynamics behind its escalating clashes with the West-and with reflections over the paths Russia might take in the twenty-first century.