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Putin, Power, and the New Russia
Oxford University Press
June 2008
On Sale: May 27, 2008
256 pages
ISBN: 0195340736
EAN: 9780195340730
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In the aftermath of the financial collapse of August 1998,
it looked as if Russia's day as a superpower had come and
gone. That it should recover and reassert itself after less
than a decade is nothing short of an economic and political
miracle. Based on extensive research, including several interviews
with Vladimir Putin, this revealing book chronicles Russia's
dramatic reemergence on the world stage, illuminating the
key reason for its rebirth: the use of its ever-expanding
energy wealth to reassert its traditional great power
ambitions. In his deft, informative narrative, Marshall
Goldman traces how this has come to be, and how Russia is
using its oil-based power as a lever in world politics. The
book provides an informative overview of oil in Russia,
traces Vladimir Putin's determined effort to reign in the
upstart oil oligarchs who had risen to power in the
post-Soviet era, and describes Putin's efforts to
renationalize and refashion Russia's industries into state
companies and his vaunted "national champions" corporations
like Gazprom, largely owned by the state, who do the bidding
of the state. Goldman shows how Russia paid off its
international debt and has gone on to accumulate the world's
third largest holdings of foreign currency reserves--all by
becoming the world's largest producer of petroleum and the
world's second largest exporter. Today, Vladimir Putin and
his cohort have stabilized the Russian economy and
recentralized power in Moscow, and fossil fuels (oil and
natural gas) have made it all possible. The story of oil and
gas in Russia is a tale of discovery, intrigue, corruption,
wealth, misguidance, greed, patronage, nepotism, and power.
Marshall Goldman tells this story with panache, as only one
of the world's leading authorities on Russia could.
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