PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewPomerantsev’s almost complete refusal to mention Putin’s name can be taken as a suggestion that we focus too much on him, that he’s so big he no longer requires discussion — or that we do not and cannot ever know who he truly is, so why even bother? ... Instead Pomerantsev focuses on a group of apparent outliers, using them to tell the story of today’s Russia ... Yet in Pomerantsev’s telling, they aren’t outliers at all; they’re characters playing parts in the Kremlin’s script ... despite its keen observations, what Pomerantsev’s book lacks is deep background for that audience. Readers of Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible aren’t given a clear sense of why the Kremlin is deploying its propaganda so forcefully (does the author mean to imply, perhaps, that it’s simply a matter of power for power’s sake?) or of why Russians are so acquiescent. In a sense, this makes the book feel truly post-Soviet.
