Authoritative, essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the frightening breadth and depth of Putin’s methods.
A disturbing account that peels back the layers of the Putin regime to reveal the corruption and violence at the core.
Once a wealthy oligarch and a player in Moscow politics, Khodorkovsky ran afoul of Putin in 2003 and spent 10 years in prison before leaving the country in exile. In this remarkable book, co-written by British journalist Sixsmith, he interweaves the story of Putin’s rise with a personal account of his own fall. The book could have easily turned into a conspiratorial rant, but the text remains focused. Khodorkovsky was an excellent student, studying chemical engineering, and his entrepreneurial streak allowed him to take advantage of the convulsions of the Gorbachev era, first with a bank and later an oil company, Yukos. His wealth led to close contact with Boris Yeltsin, and he even served as an economic adviser. When Putin took over, Khodorkovsky was initially hopeful, but he soon realized the danger of his authoritarian ambitions. Khodorkovsky’s criticisms of Putin, and of the level of corruption in the inner circle, led to his arrest and decade in prison. “You don’t even need to fall out with them to be targeted,” he writes. “They can simply take a fancy to your business or your property. And once they have you in their sights, there is no way out. You have no one to turn to, no one to help you—not the law, not the courts, not the media, not your bosses or your neighbors.” Khodorkovsky eventually fled to London, where he founded the Open Russia movement to promote liberal reform. For this, he earned a price on his head. He devotes the closing chapter to his hope that Russia might eventually become more democratic, although this sounds more idealistic than likely, and Khodorkovsky admits that Putin’s rhetoric of returning Russia to the glory days of Stalin’s time strikes a popular chord.
Authoritative, essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the frightening breadth and depth of Putin’s methods.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-28559-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
A mostly compelling account of one woman’s struggles within Trumpworld.
An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.
Hutchinson, who served as an assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, gained national prominence when she testified to the House Select Committee, providing possibly the most damaging portrait of Trump’s erratic behavior to date. In her hotly anticipated memoir, the author traces the challenges and triumphs of her upbringing in New Jersey and the work (including a stint as an intern with Sen. Ted Cruz) that led her to coveted White House internships and eventual positions in the Office of Legislative Affairs and with Meadows. While the book offers few big reveals beyond her testimony (many details leaked before publication), her behind-the-scenes account of the chaotic Trump administration is intermittently insightful. Her initial portrait of Trump is less critical than those written by other former staffers, as the author gauges how his actions were seemingly stirred more by vanity and fear of appearing weak, rather than pure malevolency. For example, she recalls how he attended an event without a mask because he didn’t want to smear his face bronzer. Hutchinson also provides fairly nuanced portraits of Meadows and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who, along with Trump, eventually turned against her. She shares far more negative assessments about others in Trump’s orbit, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and adviser Rudy Giuliani, recounting how Giuliani groped her backstage during Trump’s Jan. 6 speech. The narrative lags after the author leaves the White House, but the story intensifies as she’s faced with subpoenas to testify and is forced to undergo deep soul-searching before choosing to sever ties with Trump and provide the incriminating information that could help take him down.
A mostly compelling account of one woman’s struggles within Trumpworld.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781668028285
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.
A thoughtful program for eradicating poverty from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted.
“America’s poverty is not for lack of resources,” writes Desmond. “We lack something else.” That something else is compassion, in part, but it’s also the lack of a social system that insists that everyone pull their weight—and that includes the corporations and wealthy individuals who, the IRS estimates, get away without paying upward of $1 trillion per year. Desmond, who grew up in modest circumstances and suffered poverty in young adulthood, points to the deleterious effects of being poor—among countless others, the precarity of health care and housing (with no meaningful controls on rent), lack of transportation, the constant threat of losing one’s job due to illness, and the need to care for dependent children. It does not help, Desmond adds, that so few working people are represented by unions or that Black Americans, even those who have followed the “three rules” (graduate from high school, get a full-time job, wait until marriage to have children), are far likelier to be poor than their White compatriots. Furthermore, so many full-time jobs are being recast as contracted, fire-at-will gigs, “not a break from the norm as much as an extension of it, a continuation of corporations finding new ways to limit their obligations to workers.” By Desmond’s reckoning, besides amending these conditions, it would not take a miracle to eliminate poverty: about $177 billion, which would help end hunger and homelessness and “make immense headway in driving down the many agonizing correlates of poverty, like violence, sickness, and despair.” These are matters requiring systemic reform, which will in turn require Americans to elect officials who will enact that reform. And all of us, the author urges, must become “poverty abolitionists…refusing to live as unwitting enemies of the poor.” Fortune 500 CEOs won’t like Desmond’s message for rewriting the social contract—which is precisely the point.
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593239919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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