Book : First Person An Astonishingly Frank Self-portrait By.

-Titulo Original : First Person An Astonishingly Frank Self-portrait By Russias President

-Fabricante :

PublicAffairs

-Descripcion Original:

Who is this Vladimir Putin? Who is this man who suddenly--overnight and without warning--was handed the reigns of power to one of the most complex, formidable, and volatile countries in the world? How can we trust him if we dont know him? First Person is an intimate, candid portrait of the man who holds the future of Russia in his grip. An extraordinary compilation of over 24 hours of in-depth interviews and remarkable photographs, it delves deep into Putins KGB past and explores his meteoric rise to power. No Russian leader has ever subjected himself to this kind of public examination of his life and views. Both as a spy and as a virtual political unknown until selected by Boris Yeltsin to be Prime Minister, Putin has been regarded as man of mystery. Now, the curtain lifts to reveal a remarkable life of struggles and successes. Putins life story is of major importance to the world. Review The product of six interviews conducted by Russian journalists (and translated into English by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick), First Person is a book-length Q&A session in which Russian president Vladimir Putin discusses his childhood, his life as a spy, and his surprisingly rapid rise as a politician in the 1990s. Parts of this unusual autobiography are plainly banal (he weighs 165 pounds and likes beer), but interspersed throughout are candid comments by one of the worlds most powerful men. Putin admits that he didnt know much about Stalins violent purges in the 1930s when he joined the KGB (I was a pure and utterly successful product of Soviet patriotic education). He also scolds Soviet leaders for the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia during the cold war: These were major mistakes. And the Russophobia that we see in Eastern Europe today is the fruit of those mistakes. At another point, he expresses frustration with some of the things critics have said about him: Why have they made up so much about me? Its complete nonsense! On the war in Chechnya, he is predictably defensive: I was convinced that if we didnt stop the extremists right away, wed be facing a second Yugoslavia on the entire territory of the Russian Federation--the Yugoslavization of Russia.... We are not attacking. We are defending ourselves. Theres also an interview with his wife, who, when asked if her husband ever gets drunk, responds: There hasnt been any of that. (After Yeltsin, this is apparently of concern to Russians.) The interviewers also ask her whether he ever looks at other women. She replies with a question of her own, intriguingly: Well, what sort of man would he be, if he werent attracted by beautiful women? But Putin is, appropriately, the main show. Readers interested in Russian politics will want to review the final pages closely, as the president discourses on contemporary topics. Confronted with tough questions about Russias treatment of a journalist who filed negative stories about Chechnya, Putin says, We interpret freedom of expression in different ways. Thats a KGB man talking--and yet another reason Putin is worth watching. --John J. Miller From Publishers Weekly Prior to his sudden rise to the Russian presidency, Putin was virtually a mystery; this transcript of recent interviews goes a long way toward filling the blanks in his past. In eight chapters of q&a, punctuated with anecdotes from friends and family members, Putin recounts his boyhood in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), the three years he spent as a KGB intelligence officer in Dresden, his return to the collapsed USSR and decision to enter politics and, finally, the day Boris Yeltsin asked him to take up the Kremlin reins. In Russia, this slim volume surfaced quickly during the brief interim between Yeltsins resignation and the March elections. But rather than focusing on his political views and ideology, the interviewers devote the bulk of the text to Putins biography--an indication of just how unknown