The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Lucas makes a powerful case …The New Cold War is intelligent [and] thoughtful … the first comprehensive compendium of the Kremlin's crimes against Russians and non-Russians alike.”--Peter Savodnik, Time

"Lucas is a fine writer, and his prose has all the verve and punch that the best of his magazine, The Economist, has to offer."--Foreign Affairs

 “A meticulously constructed indictment of Putin's strong-arm tactics at home and his increasingly aggressive tone in dealing with his immediate neighbors and any other countries that try to question his behavior.”--Newsweek.com “Brilliantly reported, morally unblinkered look at what has happened to Russia under Mr. Putin…For bringing the nature of the threat so vividly to light, Mr. Lucas has performed a public service.” – Brent Stephens, Wall Street Journal

“Highly informed, crisply written and alarming... Wise up and stick together is the concluding message in Lucas's outstanding book.”-- Michael Burleigh, Evening Standard

“Lucas has a vivid, highly readable style.” –George Walden, Bloomberg.com 

“Whether this campaign of bullying is comparable to the Cold War is a matter of huge importance to the West. Hence it matters which experts we pay attention to….I can unreservedly recommend Edward Lucas. The New Cold War is about the fate that has yet again befallen the unfortunate region of Europe that lies on the borderlands of East and West.”  -- Daniel Johnson, New York Sun

"The New Cold War powerfully argues that America and Europe's excessive focus on Iraq and Afghanistan has blinded them to a threat closer to home. Thoroughly informed, steeped in his subject's recent history, with a flinty, caustic style that usually sizes up political phenomena with exacting precision, Lucas reminds us why longtime foreign correspondents surpass rookies who parachute into a foreign hotspot....Lucas offers one of the best briefs on how Yeltsin's Wild West became Putin's chilly petrofascism, detailing the return of rigged elections, forced psychiatric medication, the use of natural resources as foreign-policy bludgeons, and the rogue nations that are once again Moscow's best friends." --Philadelphia Inquirer

 "Edward Lucas is one of the best-informed, best-connected, and most perceptive journalists writing about Putin's Russia. The New Cold War is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what is happening in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union today."--Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag, A History "Edward Lucas's absorbing book shows the forces that are turning Russia against the West. They include militarism, greed, and a failure to understand that national greatness can be based only on civilized values. It is an invaluable primer for students of the Russian situation and a cautionary tale for those who prefer to treat Russia as it pretends to be rather than as it is."--David Satter, author of Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State "While the West is preoccupied with the Middle East and Islamic terrorism, Edward Lucas warns, Russia is quietly reinventing herself as a milder version of the Soviet Union and hence as a new threat to the West. Conceding Putin's domestic achievements, the seasoned East European correspondent of The Economist tracks post-Communist Russia's skillful exploitation of the capitalist world's greed to divide and thus to dominate it. It is a chilling account that needs to be taken seriously."--Richard Pipes, author of The Russian Revolution  "Veteran Moscow news correspondent Edward Lucas provides an authoritative analysis of the disturbing events in Russia today in this thoughtful, thoroughly researched and brilliantly written book that deserves the widest possible readership."—Robert Gellately, author of Lenin, Stalin and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe

"Edward Lucas offers a devastating but apt critique of Vladimir Putin’s domestic repression and increasingly aggressive foreign policy. This stark and clear-sighted book is an excellent read. It makes evident the need for a new Western policy. Russia’s political development is one of the key issues of our time."—Anders Åslund, senior fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, D.C.

"Edward Lucas has written a brilliant and profoundly disturbing study of modern Russia.  It is the history of rediscovered authoritarianism and the stunning brutality with which the KGB elite returned to power.  It is also the story of how Western venality and political credulity made this possible and placed the security of Europe at risk.  Above all, this is the tale of how President Putin methodically destroyed the vestiges of democracy in Russia and launched a New Cold War against the West.  It is difficult to overstate the importance of Edward Lucas's latest work for US and European policymakers."—Bruce P. Jackson, President, Project on Transitional Democracies

Product Description

The first edition of The New Cold War was published to great critical acclaim and Edward Lucas has established himself as a top expert in the field, appearing on numerous programs, including Lou Dobbs, MSNBC, NBC Nightly News, CNN, and NPR.

In this new revised and updated edition, Lucas reveals: 
-The truth about the corrupt elections that made Dmitri Medvedev President of Russia
-How, as prime minister, Vladimir Putin remains the de facto leader of Russia
-The Kremlin's real goals in waging war in Georgia;
-How the conflict might soon spill into other former Soviet republics.

Hard-hitting and powerful, The New Cold War is a sobering look at Russia's current aggression and what it means for the world.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; Second Edition, Revised and Updated edition (March 17, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0230614345
• ISBN-13: 978-0230614345
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,837 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #9 in	Books > Nonfiction > Politics > Ideologies > Communism & Socialism
  #22 in	Books > Nonfiction > Politics > Freedom & Security > International Security
  #25 in	Books > History > Russia

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining read, but take it with a grain of salt, August 26, 2008

By	Mladen Nesic (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West (Hardcover)

I read this book because I would like to add a Russian component to the masters thesis I am working on, and thought it would give me good background. Alas, while the book was an entertaining read, it is practically useless academically. Mr Lucas' prose drips with outrage and disdain toward Russia's leaders--and I sometimes got the feeling that his attitude extends toward all Russian people. Although I don't have a deep background in this field, it was pretty obvious that Mr Lucas glosses over very complicated events in order to substantiate his own rather simplistic argument. The book quotes very few sources and mostly regurgitates events that have already been widely reported on. The author's lack of nuance is the most troubling--everything boils down to Putin/Russia = power/control/corruption/bad--which left me with very little I could use in a serious paper. By the end of the book, I had the impression that I had read a polemic summary of everything bad the mainstream Western media has had to say about Russia over the past couple of years, which might explain why it appears to have gotten so many good reviews from major news outlets.

Mr Lucas may be right, and he certainly has a valid opinion on Russia's politics and the direction the country is going. However, I hope that anyone who would like to read this book understands what it is--the strongly written personal opinion of a journalist who has been covering Russia for a few years. It is certainly not an objective or meticulous study of any aspect of contemporary Russia.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars KGB Unmasked, January 13, 2009

By	David F. Wall - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West (Hardcover)

Great book, well-researched by the author who spent many years inside Russia and, as such, has personal and first hand insight to the changes that have taken place since Putin came to power. A great read for the patient reader. The only drawback is that the chapters are extremely long requiring at least an hour to read each. The book could have been organized better to make it more readable. Nonethless, I highly recommend it for the serious Russian observer.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting and informative read, but not quite what the title implies, November 11, 2009

By	Bojan Tunguz "Dr. Bojan Tunguz" (Greencastle, IN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The end of the Cold War has been one of the watershed moments of the twentieth century. The tension between the Soviet Union and its allies on one hand, and the Western capitalist democracies on the other, has completely dominated all of international relations for almost half a century. The collapse of the Soviet Union had spurred hopes that the days of bipolar world and the constant threat of total nuclear holocaust are finally behind us. For some time it looked that Russia and a myriad other post-Soviet republics are firmly on a path of joining the West in emulation the institutions and practices of modern liberal democracies. Russia in particular, despite all of its massive economic troubles, seemed to be opening more and more and getting increasingly integrated in the international institutions and treaties. However, the beginning of the twenty-first century saw a dramatic reversal in political and personal freedoms within Russia and an increasing hostility and open challenge to the Western nations on international front. This renewed Russian belligerence and repression of political freedoms is the consequence of the arrival of Vladimir Putin on the scene, and his systematic attempts to reverse what is perceived by many in Russia as the whole scale national decline into chaos and lawlessness.

All of these developments and many others that are not so familiar to the western observers are chronicled with an unprecedented detail and thoroughness by Edward Lucas in "The New Cold war." Edward Lucas is one of the best journalists who specialize in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics. He relies heavily on his own journalistic contacts and experiences to weave a powerful and informative narrative of Putin's Russia and the power structures and mechanism that it employs. The picture is oftentimes very brutal and ugly, but this is just a reflection of the facts on the ground.

The second part of the book deals with the geopolitical threats that the resurgent Russia poses to its neighbors and the West. This part of the book is much shorter than the part that deals with internal Russian affairs, and the information is not as fresh and original. This is all rather unfortunate, since the book's title and the premise imply that the main focus of this book is on new Russia's foreign affairs and dealings, and how this constitutes a threat to the World on par with the Cold War. The reader takes home the message that Russia, despite its very sketchy and unsavory domestic and international politics is nowhere near to its erstwhile power to disrupt the peace and stability in the World. This may indeed be the accurate picture of the true potential and importance of Russia right now, but if the author wanted to alert the public to Russia's international aspirations then this book falls short. I truly hope to find the answer to this dilemma, and would like to read a book that is in fact entirely devoted to Russia's current diplomatic relations.