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The Man Without a Face
- The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
- Narrated by: Masha Gessen
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
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Publisher's Summary
National Book Award-winner Masha Gessen's biography of a ruthless man's ascent to near-absolute power.
“In a country where journalists critical of the government have a way of meeting untimely deaths, Ms. Gessen has shown remarkable courage in researching and writing this unflinching indictment of the most powerful man in Russia.” (The Wall Street Journal)
The Man Without a Face is the chilling account of how a low-level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the Russian presidency and, in an astonishingly short time, destroyed years of progress and made his country once more a threat to its own people and to the world.
Handpicked as a successor by the "family" surrounding an ailing and increasingly unpopular Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin seemed like a perfect choice for the oligarchy to shape according to its own designs. Suddenly the boy who had stood in the shadows, 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 he seized control of media, sent political rivals and critics into exile or to the grave, and smashed the country's fragile electoral system, concentrating power in the hands of his cronies.
As a journalist living in Moscow, Masha Gessen experienced this history firsthand, and for The Man Without a Face, she has drawn on information and sources no other writer has tapped. Her account of how a "faceless" man maneuvered his way into absolute - and absolutely corrupt - power is the definitive biography of Vladimir Putin.
What the critics say
A Slate and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2012
"[An] absorbing portrait.... Gessen is most illuminating when she details the historical accidents that allowed an unexceptional bureaucrat to rule Russia." (The New Yorker)
“Part psychological profile, part conspiracy study.... As a Moscow native who has written perceptively for both Russian and Western publications, Gessen knows the cultures and pathologies of Russia...[and has] a delicious command of the English language.... A fiercely independent journalist.... Gessen’s armchair psychoanalysis of Putin is speculative. But it is a clever and sometimes convincing speculation, based on a close reading of Putin’s own inadvertently revealing accounts of his life, and on interviews with people who knew Putin before he mattered.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“In a country where journalists critical of the government have a way of meeting untimely deaths, Ms. Gessen has shown remarkable courage in researching and writing this unflinching indictment of the most powerful man in Russia.... Although written before the recent protests erupted, the book helps to explain the anger and outrage driving that movement.” (The Wall Street Journal)
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What listeners say about The Man Without a Face
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Overall
- Alec Brookes
- 2022-04-29
Good weaving of Putin's story
Masha Gessen is a good writer. I knew most of these things as isolated incidents, but they craft a whole picture. I was skeptical because I am rarely interested in liberal perspectives that vaunt capitalism amd make a caricature of the non liberal. However, after pushing through some head scratching analysis, in which every Oligarch (e.g. Berezovsky, Prokhorov) and former KGB agent who is not Putin is ultimately a good, principled person and heavy handed pop psych portraits of Putin...well, yes, the story is a good one. I connected many dots and was left with a convincingly haunting portrait. The post script about the "conservative turn" - esp. in light of the recent invasion of Ukraine - was also very welcome.
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- A User
- 2022-04-16
Insights from someone who lived the reality!
I am not a student of history and it’s n many ways regret that. I learned slot from the author’s view, experience and context.
I’m so happy she agreed to do the recording. I’ve seen her lately many places which lead me to the book and it’s wonderful have by her own voice here.
Read/listen to this book. It won’t be a waste of your time.
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- Sophie Daoust
- 2022-03-25
An excellent book I recommend.
I really loved this book;it is well resarched and beautifully writtit is the kind of nonfiction book that you want read without on and on. The audiobook is read by the autor, and it was excellent! listening to her was great. Me . Masha Gessen gives a a a better understanding of Putin’s Russia and its contexte
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- HRPuff&Stuff
- 2020-02-12
Masha Gessen has a chilling view of the early Vlad
The Man Without A Face is filled in as both a happy accident and a perfect storm for the times within an early Russian democracy, and the potential for Russia to go in two different directions. Unfortunately for Russians and for the rest of us, they went down the dark path of a corrupt petrostate.
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- Barry Blanchard
- 2021-05-17
Grasping
So much info in the book and was well read, definitely going to listen to again.
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