In this compelling and cleverly constructed book, the Russian-American journalist, activist and longstanding critic of Putin’s autocratic regime paints a chilling and alarming picture of a mafia state in an ethical vacuum and what living in such a state means to its citizens.
In The Future is History Masha Gessen follows the lives of four Russians, born as the Soviet Union crumbled, at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children or 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 not only against the machinations of the regime that would seek to crush them all (censorship, intimidation, violence) but also against the war it waged on understanding itself, ensuring the unobstructed emergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today's terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state.
The Future is History is a powerful and urgent cautionary tale by contemporary Russia's most fearless inquisitor.
Publisher: Granta Books
ISBN: 9781783784028
Number of pages: 528
Weight: 365 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 31 mm
Indispensable - Pankaj Mishra, Guardian
The Future is History is a beautifully-written, sensitively-argued and cleverly-structured journey through Russia's failure to build democracy. The difficulty for any book about Russia is how to make the world's biggest country human-sized, and she succeeds by building her story around the lives of a half-dozen people, whose fortunes wax and wane as the country opens up, then closes down once more. It is a story about hope and despair, trauma and treatment, ideals and betrayal, and above all about love and cynicism. If you want to truly understand why Vladimir Putin has been able to so dominate his country, this book will help you - Oliver Bullough
Masha Gessen is a brave and eloquent critic of the Putin regime - Edward Lucas, The Times
Impassioned - Daily Telegraph
In The Future is History, Masha Gessen demonstrates how nostalgia has changed the fabric of Russian society. More than 25% of Russians believe that Stalin's rule was good for the country. Gessen's analysis reveals how imperial nostalgia goes hand in hand with an increase in nationalism, isolationism, sexism and homophobia... Memory is a responsibility. We ought to remember the past, not only in its polished glories but also its atrocities and injustices - Elif Shafak, Guardian
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