The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. Masha Gessen (H/B)

 THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE: THE UNLIKELY RISE OF VLADIMIR PUTIN by Masha Gessen.

The Man Without a Face is the chilling account of how a small-minded, low-level KGB operative came to control the world's largest country and, in an astonisingly short time, destroyed years of progress, making Russia once more a threat to her own people and to the world.

Handpicked in 1999 by the 'Family' surrounding an ailing and increasingly unpopular Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, with very little governmental or administrative experience beyond having served as deputy mayor od St Petersburgh, seemed like the perfect choice in the eyes of an oligarchy bent on moulding the president's successor to its own designs. Suddenly the boy who had scrapped his way through post-war Leningrad schoolyards, dreaming of ruling the world, was a public figure, and his popularity soared. Russia and an infatuated West were determined to see the progressive leader of their dreams, even as with ruthless efficiency Putin dismantled the country's media., wrested control and wealth from the countryt's burgeoning business class, and decimated the fragile mechanisms of democracy. Within a few brief years, virtually every obstacle to his unbridled control was removed and every pooposing voice silenced, with political rivals and critics driven inro exile or to the grave.

As a journalist living in Moscow, Masha Gessen experienced this history firsthand, and for THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE she has drawn on informatiomn and sources no other writer has tapped. Her horrifying and spellbinding account of how this'faceless' man manoeuvered his way into absolute - and absolutely corrupt - power will stand as a classic narrative non-fiction.

A FIRST EDITION hardback published in 2012 buy Granta (£20.00 r.r.p.)

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