Book: Putin's Kleptocracy

Referenced extensively in Rachel's book (excellent, btw) and I ran across a used copy while looking for Masha Geesen.  It may be more information on Putin than I really care about, we'll see.  I can always skim.  The author died in April 2018 of lung cancer, apparently no suspicions otherwise.  The book is so hard-hitting that her regular publisher, Cambridge University Press, refused to touch it.

Found Geesen's latest, "The Future is History," in paperback on the same trip.

Edward Snowden was in my mailbox when I got home.

Happiness is a full bookshelf.

Putin and his circle of KGB apparatchiks saw the USSR fall from a combination of internal poor management and external, Western, counter-intelligence spy leverage.

Therefore, his interference in our 2016 and 2020 elections (and 2018?) is merely payback.

One of his slogans when he ran for Russian president in 2000 (and again in 2012) was "make Russia great again."  He intends to do this by re-uniting the soviet satellites that spun off in 1991.  He must decrease the leverage of the USA to protest/sanction first.

Karen Dawisha wrote:

[Putin's] power derived less from the institutional legitimacy conferred by being head of state than from the successful operation of a tribute system that obliged all participants to recognize his authority.

Trump today called for the impeachment of Mitt Romney because he said mean things about him.

NoCoPilot wrote:

 It may be more information on Putin than I really care about, we'll see.  I can always skim.

Yeah, complete histories on everyone Putin has ever crossed paths with. Skimming like crazy.

This and The Future is History are now for sale at Amazon.  Life's too short to try to read books that don't really grab you.  These were just WAYYY more detail than I cared about.

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