Judicious and comprehensive, it pulls back the veil from one of the world s most secretive leaders. Steven Lee Myers s "The New Tsar" is not the first biography of Putin, but it is the strongest to date.
"TheChristian Science Monitor, ""10 Best Books of September" Petersburg, and his reluctant but speedy climb through President Yeltin s ministries in the late 1990s." "Steven Lee Myers coherently, comprehensively, and evenhandedly tells the story not only of Putin s glory years, but also of his hardscrabble childhood in Leningrad, his checkered academic career, his undistinguished work as a KGB agent in East Germany, his remarkably loyal service to the mayor of post-Soviet St. 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. 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 clearly knows his material and primary subject Putin used the perks of power to create a complex system of cronyism and nepotism. "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. 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. methodology is sound and, I believe, the only way to capture such an intimate understanding of Russia s iron man. Such an understanding of Putin s early life and the evolution of his leadership is lacking. 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?
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. Combining skilled story telling, psychological examination and political investigation, Steven Lee Myers succeeds brilliantly in this biography of Vladimir Putin.
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