New Tsar

An epic tale of the path to power of Vladimir Putin, who emerged from obscurity to become one of the world's most conflicted and important leaders.§Vladimir Putin rose out of Soviet deprivation to the pinnacle of influence in the new Russian nation. He came to office in 2000 as a reformer, cutting taxes and expanding property rights, bringing a measure of order and eventually prosperity to millions whose only experience of democracy in the early years following the Soviet collapse was instability, poverty and criminality. But soon Putin orchestrated the preservation of a new kind of authoritarianism, consolidating power, reasserting his country's might, brutally crushing revolts and swiftly dispatching dissenters, even as he retained the support of many.§New York Times Moscow Bureau Chief, Steven Lee Myers follows Putin's path in a gripping, page-turning narrative about Russian power and prestige, elucidating the cool and calculating leader whose ambitions are as great as Peter's, his means as ruthless as Ivan the Terrible's. It's a path that mirrors the growing pains of a nation stretching from the ends of Europe to the Pacific Ocean, and is key to understanding the new Russian Colossus.