As an influx of news comes out about Russia‘s potential influence on the U.S., many Americans may be curious to learn more about the country’s recent history. What has motivated Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and what defines its president, Vladimir Putin?
In times of rapid breaking news and quickly shifting political positions, it can be helpful to take a step back and read something substantive for context. TIME asked experts from the Atlantic Council, the Wilson Center and other institutions to recommend books on Russia that would be accessible and illuminating for the general interest reader. Here are the volumes they suggested, covering everything from Kremlinology to the country’s cyber landscape.
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Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (2014)
By Peter Pomerantsev
Both Alina Polyakova, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, and Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford, recommend this cross-section of Russian society. “The book stands out because it manages to be entertaining and very accessible to a general reader while capturing a key moment of Putin’s Russia: the emergence and consolidation of the tools of state-sponsored propaganda,” says Polyakova.
All the Kremlin's Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin (2016)
The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin (2015)
Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin (2013)
Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia's New Nationalism (2016)
Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for Oil and Power in Russia (2012)
The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries (2015)
Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire (2016)
Peter the Great: His Life and World (1980)
By Robert K. Massie
“I think in many ways reading some really foundational but still accessible and entertaining works of history and literature will teach Americans much more about Russia that’s relevant to today, than if they simply read the latest trade or scholarly book on Russian foreign policy or Putin,” says Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Case in point: this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of “Russia’s most extraordinary autocrat, a man whose imprint is still felt on people, places and politics from the Far East to the heart of Europe, even three centuries after his death.”
