An epic tale of Vladimir Putin's path to power as he emerged from obscurity to become one of the world's most conflicted & important leaders Former New York Times Moscow Bureau Chief Steven Lee Myers has followed Putin since well before the recent events in the Ukraine & gives us the fullest & most engaging account available of his rise to power A gripping page-turning narrative about Russian power & prestige the book depicts a cool & calculating leader with enormous ambition & few scruples As the world struggles to confront a newly assertive Russia the importance of understanding Putin has never been greater Vladimir Putin rose out of Soviet deprivation to the pinnacle of influence in the new Russian nation He came to office in 2000 as a reformer cutting taxes & expanding property rights bringing a measure of order & eventually prosperity to millions whose only experience of democracy in the early years following the Soviet collapse was instability poverty & criminality But soon Putin orchestrated the preservation of a new kind of authoritarianism consolidating power reasserting his country's might brutally crushing revolts & swiftly dispatching dissenters even as he retained the support of many