Books about Kremlin from Amazon.com

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Price: $16.71 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Two men possess vital data on Russia's Star Wars missile defense system. One of them is CARDINAL--America's highest agent in the Kremlin--and he's about to be terminated by the KGB. The other is the one American who can save CARDINAL and lead the world to the brink of peace--or war..
Price: $0.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

With the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia launched itself on a fitful transition to Western-style democracy and a market economy But a decade later, Boris Yeltsin’s handpicked successor—Vladimir Putin, a self-described childhood hooligan turned KGB officer—resolved to end the revolution. Kremlin Rising goes behind the scenes of contemporary Russia to offer a sobering picture of its leader and the direction in which the country is now headed.

As Moscow bureau chiefs for the Washington Post, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser witnessed firsthand the methodical campaign to reverse the post-Soviet revolution and transform Russia back into an authoritarian state. Their gripping narrative moves from Putin’s unlikely rise through the key moments of his tenure. But the authors go beyond the politics to draw a moving and vivid portrait of the Russian people they encountered—both those who have prospered and those barely surviving—and show how the political flux has shaped these individuals’ lives.

With shrewd reporting and unprecedented access to Putin’s insiders, Kremlin Rising offers both unsettling revelations about Russia’s leader and a compelling inside look at life in the land he is building. This book is an extraordinary contribution to our understanding of Russia and the debate about the country’s uncertain future and its relationship with the United States..
Price: $12.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Cold War hovered over Americans like a black cloud for more than 40 years. But with the defeat of Communism in 1991, documents have been released indicating that the United States might have avoided it. Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Plashakov reveal that high-level Soviet diplomats advised Stalin to abandon global confrontation for a partnership with the United States and Britain to prevent Germany's resuscitation and to help in the Soviet Union's reconstruction. Though FDR's death and Winston Churchill's electoral defeat complicated the plan, it was the Hiroshima bombing under Truman that severed relations. Though later Soviet attempts to reconcile were thwarted by Khruschev's hope for a Russian revolution, the authors remind us that Russia's course does not depend on Russia alone..
Price: $15.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In the tradition of Hedrick Smith's The Russians, Robert G. Kaiser's Russia: The People and the Power, and David Remnick's Lenin's Tomb comes an eloquent and eye-opening chronicle of Vladimir Putin's Russia, from this generation's leading Moscow correspondents.

With the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia launched itself on a fitful transition to Western-style democracy. But a decade later, Boris Yeltsin's handpicked successor, Vladimir Putin, a childhood hooligan turned KGB officer who rose from nowhere determined to restore the order of the Soviet past, resolved to bring an end to the revolution. Kremlin Rising goes behind the scenes of contemporary Russia to reveal the culmination of Project Putin, the secret plot to reconsolidate power in the Kremlin.

During their four years as Moscow bureau chiefs for The Washington Post, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser witnessed firsthand the methodical campaign to reverse the post-Soviet revolution and transform Russia back into an authoritarian state. Their gripping narrative moves from the unlikely rise of Putin through the key moments of his tenure that re-centralized power into his hands, from his decision to take over Russia's only independent television network to the Moscow theater siege of 2002 to the "managed democracy" elections of 2003 and 2004 to the horrific slaughter of Beslan's schoolchildren in 2004, recounting a four-year period that has changed the direction of modern Russia.

But the authors also go beyond the politics to draw a moving and vivid portrait of the Russian people they encountered -- both those who have prospered and those barely surviving -- and show how the political flux has shaped individual lives. Opening a window to a country on the brink, where behind the gleaming new shopping malls all things Soviet are chic again and even high school students wonder if Lenin was right after all, Kremlin Rising features the personal stories of Russians at all levels of society, including frightened army deserters, an imprisoned oil billionaire, Chechen villagers, a trendy Moscow restaurant king, a reluctant underwear salesman, and anguished AIDS patients in Siberia.

With shrewd reporting and unprecedented access to Putin's insiders, Kremlin Rising offers both unsettling new revelations about Russia's leader and a compelling inside look at life in the land that he is building. As the first major book on Russia in years, it is an extraordinary contribution to our understanding of the country and promises to shape the debate about Russia, its uncertain future, and its relationship with the United States..
Price: $4.17 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Paul Klebnikov tells the incredible story of Boris Berezovsky, a one-time Russian car dealer who assembled a huge--and illicit--fortune after the collapse of Communism. "This individual had risen out of nowhere to become the richest businessman in Russia and one of the most powerful individuals in the country," writes Klebnikov, a respected reporter for Forbes. "This is a story of corruption so profound that many readers might have trouble believing it." Yet Godfather of the Kremlin is a careful work of journalism in which Klebnikov documents the business dealings of a man who once bragged to the Financial Times that he and six other men controlled half of the Russian economy and rigged Boris Yeltsin's reelection in 1996. Berezovsky survived both an assassination attempt and a murder investigation, and paved the way to power for Vladimir Putin. He and the other crony capitalists of post-Soviet Russia like to rationalize their deeds, writes Klebnikov: "Whenever I asked Russia's business magnates about the orgy of crime produced by the market reforms, they invariably excused it by pointing to the robber barons of American capitalism. Russia's bandit capitalism was no different from American capitalism in the late nineteenth century, they argued." Yet nothing could be further from the truth: Carnegie, Rockefeller, and their peers transformed the United States into an economic superpower. Berezovsky, on the other hand, has "produced no benefit to Russia's consumers, industries, or treasury." It's not that he didn't have an opportunity. To pick one example among many, he took over Aeroflot when it had a monopoly position in a booming market. But the company barely grew, and instead experienced myriad problems. Berezovsky controlled many businesses, but he was a lousy business manager; his only authentic success--as an auto dealer--depended on collusion. His real skill is shady dealmaking, especially with corrupt government officials. That's the way to success in modern Russia, as this well-told but troubling book reveals. --John J. Miller.
Price: $10.14 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A timely account of Putin's presidency on the eve of his departure from office

When President Vladimir Putin ascended to the Kremlin at the end of the 1990s, he had to struggle with the massive after-effects of Boris Yeltsin's political agenda: outrageous corruption, endless social injustice, and deeply entrenched interests dating back to Gorbachev and beyond. In short, Putin faced the daunting task of leveling out the residual politically unstable scene prevalent since the dramatic and unstable 1990s. Ordinary Russian citizens had been experiencing a looming and growing discontent over the political status in Russia. Stabilizing this turmoil, and working towards cleaning up the ubiquitous corruption that had been driving Post-soviet Russian life, were among Putin's primary stated aims and for this, the Russian people supported him wholeheartedly.

When he had assumed power, however, many Kremlinologists were quick to condemn Putin. Among other things, they depicted him as an authoritarian and as a dishonest leader who maintained well-known links to the KGB. Many of these experts claimed that while many Russians supported the new Kremlin and Putin's leadership, that their approval actually paradoxically stemmed from the country's history of tyranny and an alleged inclination towards it rather than actual improvements. These theories permeated the West. Likewise, they have shaped the West's understanding of modern Russia and appear to be unshakeable in many cultural circles today.

Political expert Bruno Sergi argues that readers need to know the complete story behind how Putin's presidency has been viewed within Russia by looking closely at the hard realities that conditioned Putin's policies and responses. Putin's Kremlin looks beyond the stereotypes to the hard logic of the 1990s, and asks a range of provocative questions about the disintegration of the old Soviet empire and the extraordinary riches that have caused so much opportunity and turmoil in recent years.

Bruno Sergi demonstrates that Putin has achieved genuine positive results and has also made his share of tactical mistakes, while explaining why each of these has occurred. This is a much-needed book about the Kremlin's recent triumphs and failures, based on facts rather than the typical assumptions about Russians and their society..
Price: $18.45 [Notify me when price goes down.]

With all the suspense and intrigue of a Cold War thriller, Operation Solo tells the remarkable and true story of Morris Childs, code named "Agent 58", who, for twenty-seven years, provided the United States with the Kremlin's innermost secrets during fifty-two clandestine missions to the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe..
Price: $10.17 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The prevailing Western view of Russia's Cold War strategic nuclear weapons policy is that it resulted from a two-part interplay between the leaders of the Communist Party and the military. Steven J. Zaloga has found that a third contributoræthe Russian defense industryæalso played a vital role. Drawing from elusive Russian source material and interviews with many proud Russian and Ukrainian engineers, he presents a definitive account of Russia's strategic forces, who built them, and why. .
Price: $36.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]