Socialism - General & Miscellaneous, Communism - General & Miscellaneous, General & Miscellaneous Political Theory

Russians: The People Behind The Power

Name: Russians: The People Behind The Power
Author: Gregory Feifer
ISBN: 9781455509645

by Gregory Feifer

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Overview

In RUSSIANS, Gregory Feifer explains the seeming paradoxes of Russian life by unraveling the nature of its people: what is it in their history, their desires, and their conception of themselves that makes them baffling to the West? Using the insights of his eight years as a journalist in Russia, Feifer corrects pervasive misconceptions about the country by showing that much of what appears inexplicable is actually logical when seen from the inside. He gets to the heart of why the world's leading energy producer continues to exasperate many in the international community. And he makes clear why President Vladimir Putin remains popular even as the gap widens between the super-rich and the great majority of poor.

Drawing on his own family history, as well as formative experiences in Russia's past and a deep understanding of its contemporary culture, Feifer sheds much-needed light on the purposely hidden functioning of Russian society before, during, and after communism. Expertly observed, RUSSIANS is a vivid and memorable look at the Russian experience told though true stories from the real Russians who lived them. Gripping, singular, and authentic, Greg Feifer's fascinating portrait defines a people who will continue challenging the West for the foreseeable future.

About the Author, Gregory Feifer

Until recently, Greg Feifer was National Public Radio's Moscow correspondent, and reported from Russia for almost a decade. During its resurgence under Putin, he filed from other former Soviet republics and across Russia, where he observed the effects of the country's vast new oil wealth on an increasingly nationalistic society as well as Moscow's rekindling of a new Cold War-style opposition to the West. In 2008, Feifer covered the Russia-Georgia war from the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia and traveled to Siberia, Belgrade and Berlin to produce a series on the Kremlin's use of Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, as an instrument of foreign policy.
Before joining NPR in 2005, Feifer lived in Paris and New York. He has written for numerous outlets including Agence France Presse, World Policy Journal, The New Republic, and The Washington Post. He witnessed the coup d'état attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, and later, on a fellowship from the Institute of Current World Affairs, examined the end of the Yeltsin era and Russia's subsequent transformation into an authoritarian state.