Mr. Putin

April 1, 2013

Hill and Gaddy (senior fellows, Brookings Institution; coauthors, The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold) analyze Russia's government and political system as personified by President Vladimir Putin. They ask whether Putin's intricately constructed system can sustain Russia's future in the wake of the massive anti-Putin protests of 2012. Drawing from a detailed and encompassing blend of personal interactions and observations, biographies and autobiographies, letters, articles, and state publications, the authors break Putin's personal and political persona into six segments. As they define each aspect, they demonstrate how each builds upon the others in carefully designing the image Putin apparently deems the most necessary, given the particular audience or situation. The authors end their study by questioning whether a leader who, they feel, sees himself as the government embodied can meet the demands of the educated, connected Russian people for a transparent and redefined state. VERDICT This considered analysis of a complex, seemingly self-aware political figure will make a good addition to well-rounded academic collections as it efficiently analyzes both Putin's successes and failures in the context of the greater questions about Russia's future.--Elizabeth Zeitz, Otterbein Univ. Lib., Westerville, OH

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