Karmen McNamara

This book is little more a series of somewhat-coherent ramblings. It jumps from topic to topic and era to era with the tiniest of threads holding the concepts together. The majority of the sources cited are questionable, and the author makes dozens of questionable claims with zero evidence and without nuance or historical context. That said, he does a reasonable job of bringing forward arguments that members of the extreme right desperately need to hear about the importance of Ukraine’s victory in securing long-term peace, the nonsensical nature of Russia’s defence that it was “provoked” into invading Ukraine, and the links between Russian propaganda and America’s alt right. Perhaps he is simply using language that will appeal to this group, and as a Christian republican, perhaps he will be more successful than democrats in advancing this argument. If so, this book will prove useful. However, on its own, it’s a terrible piece of work. Obviously written in a hurry, typos still included, many of the so-called “facts” presented here are presented elsewhere by Russian scholars, experts, and journalists as theories with nuance and context. For example, while it is fact that the 1999 apartment bombings gave justification for the second Chechyan war and helped propel Putin to fame, it has not been proven that they were carried out by the FSB and/or at Putin’s direction. This is a strong theory, believed by many, by is not a proven fact. When dealing with history such distinctions are critical. When the author cannot find a source to cite, he instead adds exclamation points!!! I would urge readers interested in this topic to instead read the works of Owen Matthews, Luke Harding, Jessikka Aro, Mark Galiotti, Catherine Belton, and others who have much greater expertise. In sum, possibly a high-level introduction for someone highly skeptical of the author’s viewpoint, but should be followed by works by people who actually know what they’re talking about.