PositiveThe Christian Science Monitor...vivid depictions of extraordinary Russians’ heroic efforts to do something for their communities ... Everyone else featured in Yaffa’s always-engaging book has a complicated story. These are people who have taken risks to do good for their communities, as they make their perilous way along paths that are blocked or booby-trapped by the state ... I wish that Yaffa could have channeled more of his New Yorker colleague Masha Gessen’s decisive, no-holds-barred approach, but he does not reference her articles and books, nor her analysis of Soviet resistance to academic sociology in The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.
Anne Garrels
PositiveThe Christian Science MonitorPutin Country is devastating. In contrast to the fiery Russian American journalist Masha Gessen, who almost never steps off her exasperation-pedal when writing about Putin, Garrels keeps her cool and listens quietly as she gathers locals’ narratives and opinions, no matter how disturbing.
