Publisher's Weekly Review
Stanford political science professor McFaul, who was posted to Moscow as U.S. ambassador from 2012 to 2014, provides useful insights into the changing relationship between America and Russia in this smart, personable mix of memoir and political analysis. McFaul first traveled to the then Soviet Union in 1983 as an undergraduate, and his resulting longtime interest in Russia turned to active engagement in 2007, when he was asked to advise the Obama campaign, a role that morphed into a position as special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian affairs. His tenure in the White House and then in Moscow coincided with increased tensions with the Putin regime, which ultimately accused the U.S. of interference in its elections and declared McFaul persona non grata, despite his energetic outreach to the Russian people, which included unprecedented interactions for an American on social media. McFaul does not believe Putinism as it exists today was inevitable, pointing to George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq as a "devastating blow to bilateral relations" that might otherwise have continued their post-9/11 progress. The author's privileged perspective as both an academic and policy maker makes this an essential volume for those trying to understand one of the U.S.'s most significant current rivals. Agent: Tina Bennett, WME. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* American foreign policy is personal for McFaul (Advancing Democracy Abroad, 2010), who began observing U.S.-Russian relations as a student in the 1970s and 1980s, engaged them as a pro-democracy activist and academic in the 1990s and 2000s, served on President Obama's National Security Council, and was the American ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014. McFaul, therefore, witnessed the end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the USSR, and the two ensuing decades of complex Russian engagement with democracy that, he argues, ended with Vladimir Putin's return to power in 2012. His engaging political memoir centers on his work as part of the Obama administration and as ambassador in Moscow, as his ideas were tested by the constraints of policy making and challenged by life in a Russia that was rapidly returning to autocracy. He focuses on political elites and their actions, presenting them, including the often-stereotyped Putin, as complex, human characters. McFaul ends by bringing his depth of perspective to bear on current U.S.-Russian relations, concluding that the hot peace of the Putin era is here to stay. An expert political chronicle that often reads like a fast-paced thriller, this title is highly recommended.--Jorgensen, Sara Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION, by Ottessa Moshfegh. (Penguin Press, $26.) In Moshfegh's darkly comic and profound novel, a troubled young woman evading grief decides to renew her spirit by spending the year sleeping. "I knew in my heart," she tells the reader, "that when I'd slept enough, I'd be O.K." DAYS OF AWE, by A. M. Homes. (Viking, $25.) The author's latest collection of stories confronts the beauty and violence of daily life with mordant wit and a focus on the flesh. Hanging over it all are questions, sliced through with Homes's dark humor, about how we metabolize strangeness, danger, horror. The characters seem to be looking around at their lives and asking: Is this even real? THE WIND IN MY HAIR: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran, by Masih Alinejad. (Little, Brown, $28.) In her passionate and often riveting memoir, Alinejad - an Iranian-American journalist and lifelong advocate for Muslim women - unspools her struggles against poverty, political repression and personal crises. IMPERIAL TWILIGHT: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age, by Stephen R. Platt. (Knopf, $35.) Platt's enthralling account of the Opium War describes a time when wealth and influence were shifting from East to West, and China was humiliated by Britain's overwhelming power. FROM COLD WAR TO HOT PEACE: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia, by Michael McFaul. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30.) McFaul's memoir of his years representing the United States in Russia describes how his lifelong efforts to promote international understanding were undone by Vladimir Putin. HOUSE OF NUTTER: The Rebel Tailor of Savile Row, by Lance Richardson. (Crown Archetype, $28.) You may not know the name Tommy Nutter, but you should; he was a brilliant tailor who transformed stodgy Savile Row men's wear into flashy, widelapeled suits beloved by the likes of Elton John, the Beatles, Mick Jagger and Diana Ross back in the 1960s and 1970s. SPRING, by Karl Ove Knausgaard. Translated by Ingvild Burkey. (Penguin Press, $27.) This novel, the third of a quartet of books addressed to Knausgaard's youngest child and featuring the author's signature minutely detailed description, recounts a medical emergency and its aftermath. HALF GODS, by Akil Kumarasamy. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) Across decades and continents, the characters in this affecting debut story collection are haunted by catastrophic violence, their emotional scars passed from one generation to the next. STILL LIFE WITH TWO DEAD PEACOCKS AND A GIRL: Poems, by Diane Seuss. (Graywolf, paper, $16.) Death, class, gender and art are among the entwined preoccupations in this marvelously complex and frightening volume. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Kirkus Review
A former U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation offers a gimlet-eyed view of the new Cold War.In 2014, when he announced that he was leaving his post as the Obama administration's ambassador, McFaul (Political Science/Stanford Univ.; Advancing Democracy Abroad, 2009, etc.) writes that "a prominent pro-Kremlin nationalist told me he was glad to see me go." The reason: McFaul, unlike many politically appointed diplomats, actually knew something about the country, so much so, as a Stanford Kremlinologist, that Putin was said to have feared him. The author returns the favor. As he makes clear, Putin is no friend of the U.S., and in the most recent iterations of the Cold War, especially the proxy struggle to support or undermine, respectively, an independent Ukraine, he has become ever more anti-American while at the same time progressively "weakening checks on his power." In some sense, it did not help that Obama backed off from the old U.S. mission, nominal or not, of spreading democracy. Putin certainly had no problem with spreading autocracy, even as Obama "did not support the use of coercive power to pressure dictatorships into democratizing." But McFaul's post-mortem on the Obama-Putin relationship is of less immediate interest than his view of the current morass. As he notes, Donald Trump enjoys far greater popularity in polls in Russia than at home, and although Putin may not have directly made Trump president"American voters did that"Trump has proven to be a highly useful tool for the Russian autocrat's ends. He has validated Putin's claim that the Western media are slanted and untrustworthy, refused to impose congressionally mandated sanctions, and, in his obsession with the "deep state," has played straight into Putin's conspiracy theories. Even if, as McFaul writes, "the American backlash against Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election has begun," it may come too little and too late.Of interest to observers of the unfolding constitutional crisis as well as of Russia's place in the international order. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Former ambassador to the Russian Federation, McFaul (political science, Stanford) provides the reader with an overview of his experiences and thoughts on recent relations between the United States and Russia. McFaul's examination of Soviet and American internal and international politics is peppered with key events and personalities from Reagan and Gorbachev to Putin and Obama to the many realized and unrealized opportunities, such as Iran and Syria. The narration of L.J. Ganser is clear, and his well-employed skills make a dense read engaging. VERDICT While this work provides an interesting insider's view of Russian politics as well as a mix of scholarly framework and personal narrative, it comes off at times as a bit self-serving and biased. ["A fine narrative of the rise and decline of America's Russian policy in the Obama years": LJ 6/1/18 starred review of the Houghton Harcourt hc.]-Scott R. DiMarco, Mansfield Univ. of Pennsylvania Lib. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.