The war in Ukraine turned Volodymyr Zelensky into a world celebrity. So the appearance of the first English-language biography of a Ukrainian president could not have been better timed.
Unfortunately, Western readers who buy Serhii Rudenko’s Zelensky: Biography (Polity, £20/$25, 200 pages) Impulsive disappointment is possible. The author is a Ukrainian journalist whose book was written for a local audience and published the year before the invasion. Hastily updated and translated for an international audience, it is written as a series of episodes rather than a chronological structure.
Anyone interested in finding out how Zelensky came from a relatively modest background, first to become a comedic actor and then president of Ukraine, will have to piece together the story. may be more useful.
Nevertheless, Rudenko’s book gives an authentic flavor of the controversies and conflicts that swirled around Zelensky before the Russian invasion of February 24. For example, the Kremlin that he was a drug addict Zelensky’s ties to powerful oligarch Igor Kolomoisky have also been discussed. It’s useful to remember that when foreign political leaders are discovered and touted by the Western media, the local backstory is always more complicated and confusing.
Rudenko’s biography is short and hastily put together, but Philip Short’s is elegantly written and fast-paced. Putin: His Life and Times (Bodley Head, £30/Henry Holt & Co, $40, 864 pages) is a doorstop and the result of eight years of research. Published months after the invasion, the book is the most recent biography of Vladimir Putin available.
Still, the timing of the Ukraine invasion means British journalist and author Short can devote only about 20 pages of his account to the war. But his account of Putin’s life and career helps clarify his fateful decision to invade Ukraine. Needless to say, one of the few times Putin lost control in front of foreigners was when he turned to the land that Moscow lost control of during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Short’s determination to take Putin on his own terms may strike some readers as overly sympathetic, as the terror inflicted on Ukraine by the Russian military still dominates the news. Hmm. There is a judgment or two in this book that raises eyebrows in the current context. For example, Putin’s ambivalent reaction to the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in 2015 is a claim that he showed that he “once held the levers of control with an iron.” I was flagging.” If that’s true in 2015, then by 2022, when the invasion of Ukraine took place, Putin acted with the absolute authority of the Tsar.
As Putin’s essay on Russia and Ukraine shows, a sense of his role in history shapes the actions of Russian leaders. , is of great importance in shaping the Western counterpart.of Russia: Myth and Reality (Profile £16.99/Pegasus $27.95, 288 pages), in Rodric Braithwaite’s new and concise history of Russia, the author, citing the 1782 Encyclopedia Britannica, described Russia as “very great… and inhabited by vicious and drunken savages.”
Readers seeking a more nuanced view will find Brightwait’s lively, easy-to-read exposition invaluable. The book covers more than 1,000 years of his history, culminating in the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Putin called a “geopolitical catastrophe.”
As infatuated as the war in Ukraine, political life elsewhere continued. I can understand the desire for philosophical thinking.
There are two important contributions by Geoff Mulgan and Jon Alexander.of another world is possible: How to Rekindle Your Social and Political Imagination (Hurst £20/$29.95, page 352), Mulgan, former head of policy at 10 Downing Street, argues that the political and social discourse about the future is now dominated by fear rather than hope. I’m here. He suggests that if we can’t even imagine a better future, we won’t be able to create it.
Most of his writings are devoted to ways to revive imaginative thinking about the future in settings ranging from government to art. In his final appendix, Mulgan discusses more specific policies, from universal basic his income to the creation of more common land.
of citizen: Why we all have the key to the solution (Canbury Press, £20/$30, 320 pages), Alexander, with Ariane Conrad, focuses on one particular way to improve the world. A former advertising man, Alexander became deeply disillusioned with his own business. He believes the consumer society encourages people to be both empowered and passive.
Citizens, by contrast, engage and embrace the idea of the public good. His vivid books, which have become his hits underground, highlight new forms of active citizenship, such as the rise of effective altruism movements and the establishment of community self-help organizations in African slums. doing.
Gideon Rahman Chief Foreign Policy Commentator for the FT
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