The 2015 summer reading list for Kremlinologists, Russia watchers and Western foreign policy experts
For the aspiring Kremlinologist or long-time Russia watcher, here are the ten books published in the first six months of 2015 that should be required reading this summer, whether you are vacationing in the Hamptons, the South of France, at a summer dacha outside Moscow or (for a specific class of “vacationer”) along the picturesque resort coastline of Eastern Ukraine. This summer’s reading list — ranging from deep philosophical works to breezy spy thrillers — offers unique insights into the Ukraine crisis, Russian oligarch culture, the Russian ideology of neo-Eurasianism and the Cold War legacy that continues to play a role in charting the future course of U.S.-Russian relations.
Ben Mezrich, Once Upon a Time in Russia
If you’re looking for the Hollywood-ready story of how the super-class of Russian oligarchs rose to power in modern Russia, Mezrich’s Once Upon a Time in Russia may be the best book of the summer, if not the year. Mezrich specializes in the genre of the “you won’t believe how audaciously rich they got, how fast” book — his The Accidental Billionaires became the story of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook in “The Social Network” and his story of a group of MIT gambling geniuses (Bringing Down the House) turned into the Hollywood film “21.” Now he’s back with the story of two audaciously rich Russian oligarchs — Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich — who rose to power in the Yeltsin era before coming face-to-face with the Russian oligarch crackdown headed up by Vladimir Putin. The word on the street is that “Once Upon a Time” has already been optioned off to Hollywood. Added bonus: Ben Mezrich has already promoted his new book online by providing an annotated version of a Pussy Riot song (“Kropotkin Vodka”).
Bill Browder, Red Notice
Bill Browder — the former hedge fund impresario who claims to be “Enemy #1” of the Kremlin for his role in pushing through the Magnitsky Act and exposing the dirty underside of Russian high finance— has made all kinds of headlines (and, one assumes, enemies) while promoting his latest book, Red Notice. On CNBC, Browder has become a leading critic of the Russian economy, determined to wreck Putin’s Russia financially. It’s a “fight for justice,” OK, but it’s also a highly personal vendetta after Putin expelled Browder from Russia nearly a decade ago.
David Hoffman, The Billion Dollar Spy
There has been no shortage of articles and analysts proclaiming the return of a “new Cold War” to U.S.-Russia relations ever since the incorporation of Crimea, so it’s perhaps no surprise that there’s been a renewed focus in the West on books that take a closer look at the secret machinations of the Cold War era, when the fate of the free world seemed to hinge on the secretive actions of a few key actors. The one book that’s attracted the most attention is from David Hoffman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former Moscow bureau chief of the Washington Post, who deconstructs the story of a famous Soviet researcher — the “billion dollar spy” — who was pivotal to the U.S. intelligence establishment for his insider knowledge of the Soviet Union’s military research efforts.
Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands
Richard Sakwa has written what is arguably one of the most balanced analyses of what’s actually happening in Ukraine, offering an in-depth examination of why the Ukraine crisis started in the first place. Sakwa assigns the blame as much to the West as he does to Putin’s Russia, arguing that it was Western triumphalism and NATO’s reckless expansion to Russia’s borders that prompted Russian military action in Crimea and then the Donbas as much as it was a new Soviet-style imperialism from Vladimir Putin.
Boris Nemtsov, “Putin. War”
No discussion of the so-called “hybrid war” taking place in Ukraine would be complete without mention of Boris Nemtsov’s report “Putin. War,” which was published posthumously after his tragic murder in Moscow in February. Originally published only in Russian in early May, this tell-all expose of Russian military and intelligence involvement in Ukraine put together based on notes and original text from Nemtsov, has been translated into English by one of those pesky, democracy-promoting NGOs that Russia keeps warning about these days — the Free Russia Foundation. After reading the full 65-page report, you’ll walk away convinced that the crisis in Ukraine was the result of more than just a spontaneous desire for freedom from the beleaguered Ukrainian people.
Alexander Dugin, Last War of the World-Island
While Dugin’s works have long been available in Russia, it is only recently that they have been published in the U.S., thanks primarily to the growing popularity of the Western media referring to him as one of Putin’s main ideologists. This book offers a long look back at the geopolitical development of Russia, dating all the way back to Kievan Rus. Thinking about the world as an epic struggle between land-based and sea-based nations may seem, well, a bit anachronistic in its outlook. However, time and time again, Dugin’s radical ideas about Eurasia and the growing divide between Atlanticists and Eurasianists have been cited as support for Putin’s embrace of the Novorossiya project as well as the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union. Dugin’s ideas have also been cited for their role in spurring effort to root out and suppress a “fifth column” within Russia, as well as for some of the more disturbing nationalistic trends in Russian political thought. Dugin’s book Eurasian Misson was published in the U.S. at the end of 2014, and his Last War of the World-Island was published only in May 2015. Even if Dugin really is no longer among the inner Kremlin elite, as some now suggest, his ideas continue to resonate within Russia with those who view the U.S.-Russia conflict in cultural, historical and civilizational terms.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, My Fellow Prisoners
This inside account of Russia’s criminal and penal system does not pretend to be a literary masterpiece on the scale of Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” or Dostoevsky’s “The House of the Dead.” Instead, this slim book (less than 100 pages) is the personal story of disgraced Russian billionaire oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has emerged as one of the loudest and most vocal critics of the Putin regime after serving more than a decade-long prison sentence in Siberia. In 2014, Khodorkovsky launched the Open Russia platform, telling everyone that he’d be available to take over as president of Russia just in case, you know, someone asked him. His new book offers insights into his long prison term and how it has changed his take on what modern Russian society wants and needs.
Jason Matthews, Palace of Treason
It seems like every year, there’s a new bid to start the next great Russian fiction franchise — in recent years, we’ve seen works from Tom Rob Smith (“Child 44,” “The Secret Speech”) and Daniel Silva (“Moscow Rules”) enter the mainstream. First in Red Sparrow and now in Palace of Treason, Jason Matthews, a former CIA operative, has given us Dominika Egorova, a super-sexy Russian intelligence officer who’s secretly spying for the CIA. As an added bonus, this new book teases the fact that Egorova has a “chilling midnight conversation in her nightgown with President Putin.” That may not be as scandalous as a Vladimir Sorokin’s suggestion of a homoerotic liaison between Stalin and Khrushchev, but in the current politically charged environment, any insights into the machinations inside the Kremlin (the “palace of treason” in the title)— no matter how fictional — are bound to attract the attention of Russian foreign policy hacks.
Naveed Jamali and Ellis Hennican, How to Catch a Russian Spy
Before the world heard of Edward Snowden, a story about a 20-something amateur IT guy trying to sell state secrets to the Russians would have seemed far removed from anything serious to do with national security. Now, in the era of a popular TV series such as “The Americans” and the ongoing Snowden revelations, it makes for great spy reading. How to Catch a Russian Spy has even been tagged by the Washington Post as its monthly book club pick for July. In this case, the role of the proto-Snowden is played by an American of French and Pakistani descent, Naveed Jamali, who finds himself trying to connect with his Soviet handlers in a number of less-than-glamorous destinations — including chain restaurants like Pizzeria Uno and the parking lot of a suburban Hooters.
Elena Gorokhova, Russian Tattoo
This is arguably the best pure “beach read” on the list, so save this for the late August beach vacation to Sochi. While technically not a book about Russian foreign policy — it is the story of a young female Russian immigrant in suburban New Jersey who grew up in the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union — it offers a unique insight into the “Russian World” far removed from the power circles of Moscow or Washington. As such, it offers valuable inferences into what disillusioned members of the Russian diaspora really want from life, and why they continue to feel themselves so strongly connected to their Russian homeland, even in a place like America: “The Russian me is my inheritance, rooted in my veins from birth. The Russian me is for my mother and my sister and my daughter, my blood.” If you enjoyed Yelena Akhtiorskaya’s Panic in a Suitcase last year, you’ll enjoy Gorokhova’s work this year.
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Dominic Basulto is the U.S. Executive Editor of Russia Direct, which has published a number of reports and publications about Russia, including most recently, “Insider’s Guide to Russian High-Tech Hubs” and “Kremlin Lobbyists in the West.” He is also the author of the first-ever iPad travel guide to Sochi, where he also worked on the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics media and press operations team.
