Steven Lee Myers has worked at the New York Times for 22 years, five of them in Russia during the period when Putin consolidated his power. He spent two years as bureau chief in Baghdad, covering the winding down of the American war in Iraq, and now covers the State Department. He lives in Washington, DC. This is his first book.
'Myers casts valuable light on the nexus of financial
dealings involving Putin's St Petersburg cronies' -- John Kampfner
* Observer *
'Myers has the accuracy and readable style of the best New York
Times journalists' -- Donald Rayfield * Literary Review *
'Steven Lee Myers's The New Tsar is not the first biography
of Putin, but it is the strongest to date. Judicious and
comprehensive, it pulls back the veil... from one of the
world's most secretive leaders. What is most striking, given the
aura of steely consistency that Putin cultivates, is how he has
changed over the years... The great strength of Myers's book
is the way it shows how chance events and Putin's own degeneration
gradually cleared the path to the Ukraine crisis... Putin emerges
as ... a flawed individual who made his own choices at crucial
moments and thereby shaped history.' -- Daniel Treisman *
Washington Post *
'What Steven Lee Myers gets so right in The New Tsar, his
comprehensive new biography - the most informative and
extensive so far in English - is that at bottom Putin simply feels
that he's the last one standing between order and chaos... What
Myers offers is the portrait of a man swinging from crisis to
crisis with one goal: projecting strength... A knowledgeable and
thorough biography... Putin himself now represents the chaos he
so abhors - the chaos that will surely come in his wake.' -- Gal
Beckerman * New York Times Book Review *
'Personalities determine history as much as geography, and there is
no personality who has had such a pivotal effect on 21st century
Europe as much as Vladimir Putin. The New Tsar is a
riveting, immensely detailed biography of Putin that
explains in full-bodied, almost Shakespearean fashion why he acts
the way he does.' -- Robert D. Kaplan
'The reptilian, poker-faced former KGB agent, now Russian president
seemingly for life, earns a fair, engaging treatment in the hands
of New York Times journalist Myers... [who] clearly knows
his material and primary subject... Myers shows how Putin convinced
everyone that this way of operating was part of the Russian soul
and how he perpetuated it through an archaic form of Russian
corruption... Myers astutely notes how Putin's speeches
increasingly harkened back to the worst period of the Cold War
era's dictates by Soviet strongmen... A highly effective
portrait of a frighteningly powerful autocrat.' * Kirkus
(starred review) *
'Such an understanding of Putin's early life and the evolution of
his leadership is lacking. [Myers's] methodology is sound and, I
believe, the only way to capture such an intimate understanding of
Russia's iron man.' -- Ian Bremmer, author of Superpower
'Combining skilled story telling, psychological examination and
political investigation, Steven Lee Myers succeeds
brilliantly in this biography of Vladimir Putin. Explaining the
dangers that Putin's Russia may and does pose, Myers
effortlessly and expertly guides the reader through the
complexities of the Russian Byzantine governing style and the
country's politics and identity. In the end, the book provides one
of the most comprehensive answers to a puzzling question: despite
all the changes that Russia has gone through during communism and
post-communism, why is it still an empire of the tsar?' -- Nina
Khrushcheva
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