The University of Texas at Tyler Libraries

The future is history : how totalitarianism reclaimed Russia / Masha Gessen.

By: Gessen, Masha [author.]Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Riverhead Books, [2017]Copyright date: ©2017Description: xii, 515 pages ; 24 cmContent type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9781594634536; 159463453X; 9780698406209; 0698406206Other title: How totalitarianism reclaimed RussiaSubject(s): Russia (Federation) -- Politics and government -- 1991- | Russia (Federation) -- History -- 1991- | Moscow (Russia) -- Intellectual life | Russia (Federation) -- Biography | Russia (Federation) -- Politics and government -- 1991- | Russia (Federation) -- History -- 1991- | Russia (Federation) -- Biography | HISTORY -- Modern -- 21st Century | HISTORY -- Russia & the Former Soviet Union | POLITICAL SCIENCE -- World -- Russian & Former Soviet Union | Intellectual life | Politics and government | Russia (Federation) | Russia (Federation) -- Moscow | Russia -- Politics and government | Russia -- History | Moscow (Russia) -- Intellectual life | Russia -- Biography | HISTORY / Russia & the Former Soviet Union | HISTORY / Modern / 21st Century | POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Russian & Former Soviet Union | Since 1991Genre/Form: Biographies. | Biography. | History. | Biographies.Additional physical formats: Online version:: Future is history.DDC classification: 947.086 LOC classification: DK510.763 | .G48 2017
Contents:
Part one. Born in the USSR -- Born in 1984 -- Life, examined -- Privilege -- Homo sovieticus -- Part two. Revolution -- Swan Lake -- The execution of the White House -- Everyone wants to be a millionaire -- Part three. Unraveling -- Grief, arrested -- Old songs -- It's all over all over again -- Part four. Resurrection -- Life after death -- The orange menace -- All in the family -- Part five. Protest -- The future is history -- Budushchego net -- White ribbons -- Masha: May 6, 2012 -- Part six. Crackdown -- Seryozha: July 18, 2013 -- Lyosha: June 11, 2013 -- A nation divided -- Zhanna: February 27, 2015 -- Forever war.
Awards: National Book Award, Nonfiction, 2017.Summary: Hailed for her "fearless indictment of the most powerful man in Russia" (The Wall Street Journal), award-winning journalist Masha Gessen is unparalleled in her understanding of the events and forces that have wracked her native country in recent times. In The Future Is History, she follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today's terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.
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Book University of Texas At Tyler
Stacks - 3rd Floor 		DK510.763 .G48 2017 (Browse shelf) Available 0000002346575

Includes bibliographical references (pages 488-506) and index.

Part one. Born in the USSR -- Born in 1984 -- Life, examined -- Privilege -- Homo sovieticus -- Part two. Revolution -- Swan Lake -- The execution of the White House -- Everyone wants to be a millionaire -- Part three. Unraveling -- Grief, arrested -- Old songs -- It's all over all over again -- Part four. Resurrection -- Life after death -- The orange menace -- All in the family -- Part five. Protest -- The future is history -- Budushchego net -- White ribbons -- Masha: May 6, 2012 -- Part six. Crackdown -- Seryozha: July 18, 2013 -- Lyosha: June 11, 2013 -- A nation divided -- Zhanna: February 27, 2015 -- Forever war.

Hailed for her "fearless indictment of the most powerful man in Russia" (The Wall Street Journal), award-winning journalist Masha Gessen is unparalleled in her understanding of the events and forces that have wracked her native country in recent times. In The Future Is History, she follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today's terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.

National Book Award, Nonfiction, 2017.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

In this latest work, journalist and author Gessen (Where the Jews Aren't) unmasks how Russia, often port rayed as an enigmatic country, reverted back to its totalitarian roots. The author brilliantly details how the Soviets undertook the political movement Perestroika in the 1980s to the entrenchment of the current President Vladimir Putin. The narrative focuses on both the large-scale political processes and the people who were impacted by the new government policies. What is understood is that Russian citizens were ill-prepared for the emergence of democracy. The volatile 1990s created a Russian state yearning for a simpler time when the state controlled daily life. This nostalgia fed the rise of a hard-line political narrative that Putin has used to curtail liberal opposition. Gessen portrays a stark picture of why Russia is bellicose toward the West and the United States, which complements her earlier work The Man Without a Face, and Ben Judah's Fragile Empire. VERDICT A worthwhile read that descries how Putin's powerful grip on Russia developed, offering a dire warning of how other nations could fall under a similar spell of state control.-Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Masha Gessen is a Russian American journalist. She has written several books including The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot, and The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy. The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2017.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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