Putin

A comprehensive biography exploring the personality, thoughts, and ambitions for power of the enigmatic and ruthless Russian leader in unprecedented depth.

Vladimir Putin is an outcast for the West. He alone among world leaders has the power to turn the United States and Europe into nuclear ashes, and he threatens to do so. It invades its neighbors, interferes in Western elections, and orders assassinations in Russia and beyond. The regime he heads is autocratic and corrupt, yet the majority of Russians continue to support him. Under Putin' s leadership, Russia has once again become a force to be reckoned with.
Philip Short' s comprehensive biography explores the personality of the enigmatic and ruthless Russian leader in unprecedented depth, shattering many of our preconceptions about Putin' s Russia. Since becoming president in 2000, his obsession has been to restore Russia' s status as a great power unbound by Western rules. What forces and experiences shaped him? What led him to challenge the world order that had maintained peace since the end of the Cold War?
Explaining does not mean justifying. Putin' s regime is dark. He relentlessly pursues his goals by any means he deems appropriate. However, upon closer examination, it turns out that most of what we think we know about him rests on half-truths and assumptions.
Philip Short spent eight years studying various sources and interviewing almost two hundred personalities who knew the Russian ruler personally, both in Russia and around the world. The result is an engaging and uncompromisingly objective life story with an outstanding ability to penetrate the shell that Putin has built around himself and reveal who he really is.