are its keen observations about Russia from the point of view of those experiencing its return to a heavy-handed state. By far Gessen's best book, a sweeping intellectual history of Russia over the past four decades, told through a Tolstoyan gallery of characters. 'Ambitious, timely, insightful and unsparing. Her analysis of Putin's malevolent administration is just as effective.a harrowing, compassionate and important book.' -San Francisco Chronicle 'A remarkable portrait of an ever-shifting era.Gessen weaves her characters' stories into a seamless, poignant whole. 'Forceful and eloquent on the history of her native country, Gessen is alarming and pessimistic about its future as it doubles down on totalitarianism.' -Los Angeles Times

'Fascinating and deeply felt.' - The New York Times Book Review

Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time. 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. 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. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. 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.Īward-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled.

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 WINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD Description WINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTIONįINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS

The future is history masha