Showing results for "Science" in Russian & Soviet

In today’s chaotic world, where the multiplication of information sources creates competing narratives, credibility is the key to winning the war of ideas. This is the reason why governments and corporations resort to astroturfing - creation of ostensibly grassroots movements set up to advance political agendas and commercial campaigns. The democratization of information and polarization of politics offer a perfect storm.

Since the invasion of Ukraine and ban on foreign reporters, Russia seems to have sunk into an even deeper shadow than in the darkest times of the Soviet Union. Only by presenting himself as an historian was Italian journalist Marzio G. Mian able to penetrate the Russian heartland, leading to his groundbreaking cover story for Harpers’ Magazine, “Behind the New Iron Curtain.”

In September 1984, Lisa Paul, an American college student and nanny living in Moscow, entered Inna Meiman’s house for her first Russian language lesson. And so began a two–year friendship and a fight for Inna’s life. In Swimming in the Daylight, Lisa chronicles her friend’s struggle to shed her refusenik status, obtain a visa to America, and find medical treatment for her malignant cancer. Inna endured a perverse reality as a citizen of the Soviet Union....

In 1949, a newly minted branch of the CIA (the precursor of today’s National Clandestine Service), flush with money and burning with determination to roll back the Iron Curtain, embarked on the first paramilitary operation in the history of the agency. They hatched an elaborate plan, coordinated with the British Secret Intelligence Service, to foment popular rebellion and detach Albania, the weakest of the Soviet satellites in Europe, from Moscow’s orbit. The operation resulted in dismal failure and was shut down by 1954.

When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, analysts and policymakers highlighted the unifying shock that NATO members experienced. However even before the return of US president Donald Trump, beneath this seeming cohesion lay deep-seated differences in how member states perceive and prioritize security threats.

Now extensively revised in this ninth edition, A History of Russia covers the entire span of the country's history, from ancient times to the post-communist present. Keeping with the hallmark of the text, Riasanovsky and Steinberg examine all aspects of Russia's history—political, international, military, economic, social, and cultural—with a commitment to objectivity, fairness, and balance, and to reflecting recent research and new trends in scholarly interpretation.

In Putinomics, Chris Miller examines the making of Russian economic policy since Vladimir Putin took power in 1999. Miller argues that Putin's economic strategy has functioned far more effectively than most Westerners realize. While acknowledging that part of Putin's successes - above all, quadrupling per capita GDP in just a decade and a half - can be attributed to cashing in on high oil prices, Miller details the government policies that have also been fundamental to Russia's growth.

Drawing on a wide range of unpublished material and observations gathered from his visit to Yugoslavia in 1999, Michael Parenti challenges mainstream media coverage of the war, uncovering hidden agendas behind the Western talk of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and democracy.

Paul D'Anieri explores the dynamics within Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia, and between Russia and the West, that emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union and eventually led to war in 2014. Proceeding chronologically, this book shows how Ukraine's separation from Russia in 1991, at the time called a "civilized divorce", led to what many are now calling "a new Cold War".

Wartime Russia is drowning in fascist symbols. Zealous patriots attack journalists, opposition activists, and anyone suspected of betraying the motherland. Russians are urged to join the cause by hordes of online trolls and sleek videos of angry young men bellowing patriotic slogans. State television terrifies viewers with trumped up tales of anti-Russian conspiracies and genocidal yearnings. Child soldiers proudly parade across Red Square. This is Russia in the 2020s: a land of performative rage and nationalist untruth, where play-acting, pretense, and broken promises are a way of life.

Dually armed with military and strategic prowess, the Wagner Group created a new market in a vast geopolitical landscape increasingly receptive to the promises of private actors. In this trailblazing account of the Group’s origins and operations, John Lechner—the only journalist to report across its many warzones—brings us on the ground to witness Wagner partner with fragile nation states, score access to natural resources, oust peacekeeping missions, and cash in on conflicts reframed as Kremlin interests.

Durante más de medio siglo y hasta su abolición en 1991, el Comité para la Seguridad del Estado (KGB), conocido también en el mundo del espionaje como ‘El Centro', dirigió una auténtica guerra de espías desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial hasta el fin de la Guerra Fría. Pero no solo el KGB significaba el enemigo para la CIA o el MI6, sino también el terror para miles de ciudadanos de la antigua Unión Soviética. El 'escudo y la espada' (símbolo del KGB) a través de sus agentes y espías fueron sin duda alguna la vanguardia de la defensa de unos valores que dejaron de serlo abruptamente en 1991.

America is in a new Cold War with Russia even more dangerous than the one the world barely survived in the 20th century. All of this is exacerbated by Washington’s war-like demonizing of the Kremlin leadership and by Russiagate’s unprecedented allegations. US mainstream media accounts are highly selective and seriously misleading. American “disinformation”, not only Russian, is a growing peril.

In this new history of the conflict that defined the postwar era, Sergey Radchenko provides a deep dive into the psychology of the Kremlin's decision-making. He reveals how the Soviet struggle with the United States and China reflected its irreconcilable ambitions as a self-proclaimed superpower and the leader of global revolution. This tension drove Soviet policies from Stalin's postwar scramble for territory to Khrushchev's reckless overseas adventurism and nuclear brinksmanship, Brezhnev's jockeying for influence in the third world, and Gorbachev's failed attempts to reinvent Moscow.

Evgeny Prigozhin emerged as one of the most dangerous warlords in the world and as one of Vladimir Putin's chief rivals in Russia's tumultuous political climate, exiled after leading Wagner's attempted coup and killed in a mysterious plane crash. But what is the truth about this enigmatic figure, his role in the war with Ukraine, and the chaos unleashed across Russia by his turn against Putin? And, the aftermath of his death, what is next for Russia in the new stage of late Putinism that Prigozhin's life forged?

Dark Shadows is a compelling portrait of Kazakhstan, a country that is little known in the West. Strategically located in the heart of Central Asia, sandwiched between Vladimir Putin's Russia, its former colonial ruler, and Xi Jinping's China, this vast oil-rich state is carving out its place in the world as it contends with its own complex past and present. Journalist Joanna Lillis paints a vibrant picture of this emerging nation through vivid reportage based on seventeen years of on-the-ground coverage.

Navalny. Lenin. Pugachev. The Russian rebel—in his epic battle against the Leviathan of the Russian state—has enthralled readers and writers for decades. The rebel's story is almost always a sad one that ends in exile, imprisonment, or martyrdom, leaving but a seed for the future reform of the Leviathan which he or she had taken on.

Following the end of the Cold War, the world experienced a remarkable wave of democratization. Over the next two decades, numerous authoritarian regimes transitioned to democracies, and it seemed that authoritarianism as a political model was fading. But as recent events have shown, things have clearly changed. In Dictating the Agenda, authors Alexander Cooley and Alexander Dukalskis reveal how today's authoritarian states are actively countering liberal ideas and advocacy surrounding human rights and democracy across various global governance domains.

Blandt russiske forbrydere og i sikkerhedstjenesternes verden er begrebet "det våde job" synonymt med et voldeligt overfald, oftest et drab. Det nævnes i russiske romaner i første halvdel af 1900-tallet, og betegnelsen er også krøbet ind i amerikansk gangsterslang. I sovjettiden blev vendingen i nogle tilfælde brugt som omskrivning for drab på politiske modstandere foretaget af en af landets magtfulde sikkerhedstjenester.