Putin's Kleptocracy

No, not a title that leaps into your mind. I only found it by chance, in the obituary columns, where they were paying tribute to the painstaking work of its author, Karen Dawisha. An Ohio professor of political philosophy, she's mad it her job to track the roots and history of Putin's rise to power. the results are devastating. Not brilliantly readable, to be honest, and certainly not lively, but careful and detailed. she makes a convincing case that Putin has always been about his own power and aggrandisement - and that early on he was very much at risk of prosecution, until he got to the point where he could use his power to make that decreasingly likely. the concern for Russia's status and dignity is all carefully calculated, as is the promotion of friends and former colleagues into a network designed to secure control and wealth in their hands. It's very hard to see how this might change. Four hundred and forty pages, endless notes and footnotes, a monumanet to courage, intelligence and hard work.