Author: Luisa Passerini
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412828422
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Understanding Europe's past became an urgent matter with the events of August 1991 in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union. The invasion of Moscow's streets by Russian people rejecting an attempted coup d'etat was the culmination of a process that had been initiated years before and raised crucial questions: To what extent can these events be considered the end of an era stretching from World War I to the 1980s, when Europe experienced many forms of dictatorship? To what extent can the various forms of dictatorship Europe experienced in the twentieth century be grouped together? Can any sort of affinity be established between them? The new introduction to the paperback edition of this volume in the Memory and Narrative series, Leydesdorff and Crownshaw underline the fundamental importance of the struggle for memory and its meaning. Memory and Totalitarianism explores the remembered experiences of individuals living under different totalitarian regimes, and examines the construction of memory in the aftermath of those regimes' collapse. It attempts to situate the findings of oral history in the context of contemporary memory. It wrestles with the most painful memories that Europeans have of this century at the end of the Cold War. These memories compare with oral history's research into such experiences as racist attitudes against blacks in the South, or the cultural and psychological effects of apartheid in South Africa, or the Aborigines' claim to their own history and to a new idea of history in Australia. Totalitarianisms are products of the twentieth century that go far beyond earlier manifestations of absolutism and autocracy in their effort to completely control political, social, and intellectual life. They were made possible by modern industrialism and technology. Therefore the theme of the book expands to include many other experiences that relate to totalitarian mentalities. Luisa Passerini is professor of cultural history at the University of Torino and external professor at the European University Institute, Florence. Her present trends of research are: European identity; the historical relationships between the discourse on Europe and the discourse on love; gender and generation as historical categories; memory and subjectivity. Among her recent publications are Europe in Love, Love in Europe: Imagination and Politics Between the Wars Il mito d'Europa. Radici antiche per nuovi simboli. Selma Leydesdorff is professor of oral history at the University of Amsterdam. Her publications include We Lived with Dignity and (with Kim Lacy Rogers) Trauma: Life Stories of Survivors. Richard Crownshaw is a lecturer in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), where his teaching includes 19th- and 20th-century American literature and representations of the Holocaust. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London.
Memory and Totalitarianism
Author: Luisa Passerini
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412828422
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Understanding Europe's past became an urgent matter with the events of August 1991 in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union. The invasion of Moscow's streets by Russian people rejecting an attempted coup d'etat was the culmination of a process that had been initiated years before and raised crucial questions: To what extent can these events be considered the end of an era stretching from World War I to the 1980s, when Europe experienced many forms of dictatorship? To what extent can the various forms of dictatorship Europe experienced in the twentieth century be grouped together? Can any sort of affinity be established between them? The new introduction to the paperback edition of this volume in the Memory and Narrative series, Leydesdorff and Crownshaw underline the fundamental importance of the struggle for memory and its meaning. Memory and Totalitarianism explores the remembered experiences of individuals living under different totalitarian regimes, and examines the construction of memory in the aftermath of those regimes' collapse. It attempts to situate the findings of oral history in the context of contemporary memory. It wrestles with the most painful memories that Europeans have of this century at the end of the Cold War. These memories compare with oral history's research into such experiences as racist attitudes against blacks in the South, or the cultural and psychological effects of apartheid in South Africa, or the Aborigines' claim to their own history and to a new idea of history in Australia. Totalitarianisms are products of the twentieth century that go far beyond earlier manifestations of absolutism and autocracy in their effort to completely control political, social, and intellectual life. They were made possible by modern industrialism and technology. Therefore the theme of the book expands to include many other experiences that relate to totalitarian mentalities. Luisa Passerini is professor of cultural history at the University of Torino and external professor at the European University Institute, Florence. Her present trends of research are: European identity; the historical relationships between the discourse on Europe and the discourse on love; gender and generation as historical categories; memory and subjectivity. Among her recent publications are Europe in Love, Love in Europe: Imagination and Politics Between the Wars Il mito d'Europa. Radici antiche per nuovi simboli. Selma Leydesdorff is professor of oral history at the University of Amsterdam. Her publications include We Lived with Dignity and (with Kim Lacy Rogers) Trauma: Life Stories of Survivors. Richard Crownshaw is a lecturer in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), where his teaching includes 19th- and 20th-century American literature and representations of the Holocaust. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London.
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412828422
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Understanding Europe's past became an urgent matter with the events of August 1991 in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union. The invasion of Moscow's streets by Russian people rejecting an attempted coup d'etat was the culmination of a process that had been initiated years before and raised crucial questions: To what extent can these events be considered the end of an era stretching from World War I to the 1980s, when Europe experienced many forms of dictatorship? To what extent can the various forms of dictatorship Europe experienced in the twentieth century be grouped together? Can any sort of affinity be established between them? The new introduction to the paperback edition of this volume in the Memory and Narrative series, Leydesdorff and Crownshaw underline the fundamental importance of the struggle for memory and its meaning. Memory and Totalitarianism explores the remembered experiences of individuals living under different totalitarian regimes, and examines the construction of memory in the aftermath of those regimes' collapse. It attempts to situate the findings of oral history in the context of contemporary memory. It wrestles with the most painful memories that Europeans have of this century at the end of the Cold War. These memories compare with oral history's research into such experiences as racist attitudes against blacks in the South, or the cultural and psychological effects of apartheid in South Africa, or the Aborigines' claim to their own history and to a new idea of history in Australia. Totalitarianisms are products of the twentieth century that go far beyond earlier manifestations of absolutism and autocracy in their effort to completely control political, social, and intellectual life. They were made possible by modern industrialism and technology. Therefore the theme of the book expands to include many other experiences that relate to totalitarian mentalities. Luisa Passerini is professor of cultural history at the University of Torino and external professor at the European University Institute, Florence. Her present trends of research are: European identity; the historical relationships between the discourse on Europe and the discourse on love; gender and generation as historical categories; memory and subjectivity. Among her recent publications are Europe in Love, Love in Europe: Imagination and Politics Between the Wars Il mito d'Europa. Radici antiche per nuovi simboli. Selma Leydesdorff is professor of oral history at the University of Amsterdam. Her publications include We Lived with Dignity and (with Kim Lacy Rogers) Trauma: Life Stories of Survivors. Richard Crownshaw is a lecturer in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), where his teaching includes 19th- and 20th-century American literature and representations of the Holocaust. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London.
Totalitarian Societies and Democratic Transition
Author: Tommaso Piffer
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633861322
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 444
Book Description
This book is a tribute to the memory of Victor Zaslavsky (1937–2009), sociologist, émigré from the Soviet Union, Canadian citizen, public intellectual, and keen observer of Eastern Europe. In seventeen essays leading European, American and Russian scholars discuss the theory and the history of totalitarian society with a comparative approach. They revisit and reassess what Zaslavsky considered the most important project in the latter part of his life: the analysis of Eastern European - especially Soviet societies and their difficult “transition” after the fall of communism in 1989–91. The variety of the contributions reflects the diversity of specialists in the volume, but also reveals Zaslavsky's gift: he surrounded himself with talented people from many different fields and disciplines. In line with Zaslavsky's work and scholarly method, the book promotes new theoretical and methodological approaches to the concept of totalitarianism for understanding Soviet and East European societies, and the study of fascist and communist regimes in general.
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633861322
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 444
Book Description
This book is a tribute to the memory of Victor Zaslavsky (1937–2009), sociologist, émigré from the Soviet Union, Canadian citizen, public intellectual, and keen observer of Eastern Europe. In seventeen essays leading European, American and Russian scholars discuss the theory and the history of totalitarian society with a comparative approach. They revisit and reassess what Zaslavsky considered the most important project in the latter part of his life: the analysis of Eastern European - especially Soviet societies and their difficult “transition” after the fall of communism in 1989–91. The variety of the contributions reflects the diversity of specialists in the volume, but also reveals Zaslavsky's gift: he surrounded himself with talented people from many different fields and disciplines. In line with Zaslavsky's work and scholarly method, the book promotes new theoretical and methodological approaches to the concept of totalitarianism for understanding Soviet and East European societies, and the study of fascist and communist regimes in general.
Memory and Totalitarianism
Author: Luisa Passerini
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135150598X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262
Book Description
Understanding Europe's past became an urgent matter with the events of August 1991 in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union. The invasion of Moscow's streets by Russian people rejecting an attempted coup d'etat was the culmination of a process that had been initiated years before and raised crucial questions: To what extent can these events be considered the end of an era stretching from World War I to the 1980s, when Europe experienced many forms of dictatorship? To what extent can the various forms of dictatorship Europe experienced in the twentieth century be grouped together? Can any sort of affinity be established between them? The new introduction to the paperback edition of this volume in the Memory and Narrative series, Leydesdorff and Crownshaw underline the fundamental importance of the struggle for memory and its meaning. Memory and Totalitarianism explores the remembered experiences of individuals living under different totalitarian regimes, and examines the construction of memory in the aftermath of those regimes' collapse. It attempts to situate the findings of oral history in the context of contemporary memory. It wrestles with the most painful memories that Europeans have of this century at the end of the Cold War. These memories compare with oral history's research into such experiences as racist attitudes against blacks in the South, or the cultural and psychological effects of apartheid in South Africa, or the Aborigines' claim to their own history and to a new idea of history in Australia. Totalitarianisms are products of the twentieth century that go far beyond earlier manifestations of absolutism and autocracy in their effort to completely control political, social, and intellectual life. They were made possible by modern industrialism and technology. Therefore the theme of the book expands to include many other experiences that relate to totalitarian mentalities.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135150598X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262
Book Description
Understanding Europe's past became an urgent matter with the events of August 1991 in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union. The invasion of Moscow's streets by Russian people rejecting an attempted coup d'etat was the culmination of a process that had been initiated years before and raised crucial questions: To what extent can these events be considered the end of an era stretching from World War I to the 1980s, when Europe experienced many forms of dictatorship? To what extent can the various forms of dictatorship Europe experienced in the twentieth century be grouped together? Can any sort of affinity be established between them? The new introduction to the paperback edition of this volume in the Memory and Narrative series, Leydesdorff and Crownshaw underline the fundamental importance of the struggle for memory and its meaning. Memory and Totalitarianism explores the remembered experiences of individuals living under different totalitarian regimes, and examines the construction of memory in the aftermath of those regimes' collapse. It attempts to situate the findings of oral history in the context of contemporary memory. It wrestles with the most painful memories that Europeans have of this century at the end of the Cold War. These memories compare with oral history's research into such experiences as racist attitudes against blacks in the South, or the cultural and psychological effects of apartheid in South Africa, or the Aborigines' claim to their own history and to a new idea of history in Australia. Totalitarianisms are products of the twentieth century that go far beyond earlier manifestations of absolutism and autocracy in their effort to completely control political, social, and intellectual life. They were made possible by modern industrialism and technology. Therefore the theme of the book expands to include many other experiences that relate to totalitarian mentalities.
Hope and Memory
Author: Tzvetan Todorov
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691171424
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Both a political history and a moral critique of the twentieth century, this is a personal and impassioned book from one of Europe's most outstanding intellectuals. Identifying totalitarianism as the major innovation of the twentieth century, Tzvetan Todorov examines the struggle between this system and democracy and its effects on human life and consciousness. Totalitarianism managed to impose itself because, more than any other political system, it played on people's need for the absolute: it fed their hope to endow life with meaning by taking part in the construction of a paradise on earth. As a result, millions of people lost their lives in the name of a higher good. While democracy eventually won the struggle against totalitarianism in much of the world, democracy itself is not immune to the pitfall of do-goodery: moral correctness at home and atomic or "humanitarian" bombs abroad. Todorov explores the history of the past century not only by analyzing its spectacular political conflicts but also by offering moving profiles of several individuals who, at great personal cost, resisted the strictures of the communist and Nazi regimes. Some--Margarete Buber-Neumann, David Rousset, Primo Levi, and Germaine Tillion--were deported to concentration camps. Others--Vasily Grossman and Romain Gary--fought courageously in World War II. All became exemplary witnesses who described with great lucidity and humanity what they had endured. This book preserves the memory of the past as we move into the twenty-first century--arguing eloquently that we must place the past at the service of a just future.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691171424
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Both a political history and a moral critique of the twentieth century, this is a personal and impassioned book from one of Europe's most outstanding intellectuals. Identifying totalitarianism as the major innovation of the twentieth century, Tzvetan Todorov examines the struggle between this system and democracy and its effects on human life and consciousness. Totalitarianism managed to impose itself because, more than any other political system, it played on people's need for the absolute: it fed their hope to endow life with meaning by taking part in the construction of a paradise on earth. As a result, millions of people lost their lives in the name of a higher good. While democracy eventually won the struggle against totalitarianism in much of the world, democracy itself is not immune to the pitfall of do-goodery: moral correctness at home and atomic or "humanitarian" bombs abroad. Todorov explores the history of the past century not only by analyzing its spectacular political conflicts but also by offering moving profiles of several individuals who, at great personal cost, resisted the strictures of the communist and Nazi regimes. Some--Margarete Buber-Neumann, David Rousset, Primo Levi, and Germaine Tillion--were deported to concentration camps. Others--Vasily Grossman and Romain Gary--fought courageously in World War II. All became exemplary witnesses who described with great lucidity and humanity what they had endured. This book preserves the memory of the past as we move into the twenty-first century--arguing eloquently that we must place the past at the service of a just future.
Memory and Totalitarianism
Author: Luisa Passerini
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories is a new series which aims to increase our understanding of the recent past and the changing present. It sets out to present and interpret autobiographical testimony, whether in the form of written autobiography, oral history, or life-story interviews. Edited by an international group of leading scholars, the International Yearbook is genuinely interdisciplinary and intellectually stimulating, with much to offer students in many areas, including history, sociology, literature, psychology, and anthropology. Each issue will form a coherent volume focusing on a single theme. Memory And Totalitarianism explores the remembered experience of individuals living under different totalitarian regimes, and examines the construction of memory in the aftermath of their collapse. Luisa Passerini, Special Editor of this volume, contributes an Introduction which underlines the fundamental importance of the struggle for memory and its meaning.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories is a new series which aims to increase our understanding of the recent past and the changing present. It sets out to present and interpret autobiographical testimony, whether in the form of written autobiography, oral history, or life-story interviews. Edited by an international group of leading scholars, the International Yearbook is genuinely interdisciplinary and intellectually stimulating, with much to offer students in many areas, including history, sociology, literature, psychology, and anthropology. Each issue will form a coherent volume focusing on a single theme. Memory And Totalitarianism explores the remembered experience of individuals living under different totalitarian regimes, and examines the construction of memory in the aftermath of their collapse. Luisa Passerini, Special Editor of this volume, contributes an Introduction which underlines the fundamental importance of the struggle for memory and its meaning.
Totalitarianism
Author: David D. Roberts
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509532420
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 125
Book Description
Less than a century old, the concept of totalitarianism is one of the most controversial in political theory, with some proposing to abandon it altogether. In this accessible, wide-ranging introduction, David Roberts addresses the grounds for skepticism and shows that appropriately recast—as an aspiration and direction, rather than a system of domination—totalitarianism is essential for understanding the modern political universe. Surveying the career of the concept from the 1920s to today, Roberts shows how it might better be applied to the three ""classic"" regimes of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Stalinist Soviet Union. Extending totalitarianism’s reach into the twenty-first century, he then examines how Communist China, Vladimir Putin's Russia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS), and the threat of the technological “surveillance state” can be conceptualized in the totalitarian tradition. Roberts shows that although the term has come to have overwhelmingly negative connotations, some have enthusiastically pursued a totalitarian direction—and not simply for power, control, or domination. This volume will be essential reading for any student, scholar or reader interested in how totalitarianism does, and could, shape our modern political world.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509532420
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 125
Book Description
Less than a century old, the concept of totalitarianism is one of the most controversial in political theory, with some proposing to abandon it altogether. In this accessible, wide-ranging introduction, David Roberts addresses the grounds for skepticism and shows that appropriately recast—as an aspiration and direction, rather than a system of domination—totalitarianism is essential for understanding the modern political universe. Surveying the career of the concept from the 1920s to today, Roberts shows how it might better be applied to the three ""classic"" regimes of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Stalinist Soviet Union. Extending totalitarianism’s reach into the twenty-first century, he then examines how Communist China, Vladimir Putin's Russia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS), and the threat of the technological “surveillance state” can be conceptualized in the totalitarian tradition. Roberts shows that although the term has come to have overwhelmingly negative connotations, some have enthusiastically pursued a totalitarian direction—and not simply for power, control, or domination. This volume will be essential reading for any student, scholar or reader interested in how totalitarianism does, and could, shape our modern political world.
The Burden of the Past
Author: Anna Wylegala
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253046734
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
Essays on how chaos, totalitarianism, and trauma have shaped Ukraine’s culture: “A milestone of the scholarship about Eastern European politics of memory.” —Wulf Kansteiner, Aarhus University In a century marked by totalitarian regimes, genocide, mass migrations, and shifting borders, the concept of memory in Eastern Europe is often synonymous with notions of trauma. In Ukraine, memory mechanisms were disrupted by political systems seeking to repress and control the past in order to form new national identities supportive of their own agendas. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, memory in Ukraine was released, creating alternate visions of the past, new national heroes, and new victims. This release of memories led to new conflicts and “memory wars.” How does the past exist in contemporary Ukraine? The works collected in The Burden of the Past focus on commemorative practices, the politics of history, and the way memory influences Ukrainian politics, identity, and culture. The works explore contemporary memory culture in Ukraine and the ways in which it is being researched and understood. Drawing on work from historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and political scientists, the collection represents a truly interdisciplinary approach. Taken together, the groundbreaking scholarship collected in The Burden of the Past provides insight into how memories can be warped and abused, and how this abuse can have lasting effects on a country seeking to create a hopeful future.
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253046734
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
Essays on how chaos, totalitarianism, and trauma have shaped Ukraine’s culture: “A milestone of the scholarship about Eastern European politics of memory.” —Wulf Kansteiner, Aarhus University In a century marked by totalitarian regimes, genocide, mass migrations, and shifting borders, the concept of memory in Eastern Europe is often synonymous with notions of trauma. In Ukraine, memory mechanisms were disrupted by political systems seeking to repress and control the past in order to form new national identities supportive of their own agendas. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, memory in Ukraine was released, creating alternate visions of the past, new national heroes, and new victims. This release of memories led to new conflicts and “memory wars.” How does the past exist in contemporary Ukraine? The works collected in The Burden of the Past focus on commemorative practices, the politics of history, and the way memory influences Ukrainian politics, identity, and culture. The works explore contemporary memory culture in Ukraine and the ways in which it is being researched and understood. Drawing on work from historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and political scientists, the collection represents a truly interdisciplinary approach. Taken together, the groundbreaking scholarship collected in The Burden of the Past provides insight into how memories can be warped and abused, and how this abuse can have lasting effects on a country seeking to create a hopeful future.
Memory and Political Change
Author: A. Assmann
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230354246
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
Examining the role of memory in the transition from totalitarian to democratic systems, this book makes an important contribution to memory studies. It explores memory as a medium of and impediment to change, looking at memory's biological, cultural, narrative and socio-psychological dimensions.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230354246
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
Examining the role of memory in the transition from totalitarian to democratic systems, this book makes an important contribution to memory studies. It explores memory as a medium of and impediment to change, looking at memory's biological, cultural, narrative and socio-psychological dimensions.
Telling October
Author: Frederick C. Corney
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801489310
Category : Russia (Federation)
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
'Telling October' chronicles the construction of an official 'foundation narrative' by the Soviet Union as the new state sought to legitimise itself by portraying the October Revolution as the inevitable culmination of a historical process.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801489310
Category : Russia (Federation)
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
'Telling October' chronicles the construction of an official 'foundation narrative' by the Soviet Union as the new state sought to legitimise itself by portraying the October Revolution as the inevitable culmination of a historical process.
The Future Is History (National Book Award Winner)
Author: Masha Gessen
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 159463453X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530
Book Description
WINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS WINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, BOSTON GLOBE, SEATTLE TIMES, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, NEWSWEEK, PASTE, and POP SUGAR The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a more virulent and invincible new strain of autocracy. Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own--as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today's terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 159463453X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530
Book Description
WINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS WINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, BOSTON GLOBE, SEATTLE TIMES, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, NEWSWEEK, PASTE, and POP SUGAR The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a more virulent and invincible new strain of autocracy. Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own--as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today's terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.