Title rated 4 out of 5 stars, based on 104 ratings(104 ratings)
Book, 2013
Current format, Book, 2013, , Available .
Book, 2013
Current format, Book, 2013, , Available . Offered in 0 more formats
"In 1999, the "Family" surrounding Boris Yeltsin went looking for a successor to the ailing and increasingly unpopular president. Vladimir Putin, with very little governmental or administrative experience-- he'd been deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, and briefly, director of the secret police-- nevertheless seemed the perfect choice: a "faceless" creature whom Yeltsin and his cronies could mold in their own image. Russia and an infatuated West were determined to see in him the progressive leader of their dreams-- even as Putin, with ruthless efficiency, dismantled the country's media, wrested control and wealth from the business class, and destroyed the fragile mechanisms of democracy. Within a few brief years, virtually every obstacle to his unbridled control was removed and every opposing voice silenced, with political rivals and critics driven into exile or to the grave" --
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