WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE
WINNER OF THE CORNELIUS RYAN AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE
FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

"Fast-paced and excellently written... much needed, dispassionate and eminently readable." -- New York Times

"Filled with sparkling prose and deep analysis." -The Wall Street Journal

The breakup of the Soviet Union was a time of optimism around the world, but Russia today is actively involved in subversive information warfare, manipulating the media to destabilize its enemies. How did a country that embraced freedom and market reform 25 years ago end up as an autocratic police state bent once again on confrontation with America? A winner of the Orwell Prize, The Invention of Russia reaches back to the darkest days of the cold war to tell the story of Russia's stealthy and largely unchronicled counter revolution.

A highly regarded Moscow correspondent for the Economist, Arkady Ostrovsky comes to this story both as a participant and a foreign correspondent. His knowledge of many of the key players allows him to explain the phenomenon of Valdimir Putin - his rise and astonishing longevity, his use of hybrid warfare and the alarming crescendo of his military interventions. One of Putin's first acts was to reverse Gorbachev's decision to end media censorship and Ostrovsky argues that the Russian media has done more to shape the fate of the country than its politicians. Putin pioneered a new form of demagogic populism --oblivious to facts and aggressively nationalistic - that has now been embraced by Donald Trump.

• We started tracking this book on December 3, 2015.
• This book was $14.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 98 times in the past 3,366 days.
• The current price of this book is $4.99 last checked 11 hours ago.
• The lowest price to date was $4.99 last reached on February 15, 2025.
• This book has been $4.99 6 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $14.99 last reached on December 23, 2024.
• This book has been $14.99 20 times since we started tracking it.
• This book is currently at its lowest price since we started tracking it.

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 372 Pages
• File Size: 1,439 KB