The young Russian men and women who record in these pages the hopes, fears, triumphs, and tragedies their country has undergone in recent years-altering their own lives profoundly in the process-all come from the first post-Soviet generation to achieve positions of leadership in Russia. They report on five challenges central to Russia's survival and stabilization: reshaping the state, coping with new economic rules, striving toward the rule of law, building a civil society, and preserving the national culture and educational capacity. They love their country, while understanding all too well the crippling psychological legacy of seventy years of a dictatorship that was both cunning and cruel in dispensing a plausible utopian myth and exacting extraordinary sacrifices in the name of that myth. They understand the acute sense of disorientation that overcame all generations when the USSR abruptly dissolved in 1991 and the Communist Party simultaneously lost much, if not all, of its power. As several of our authors recall, it was like waking up one morning and finding yourself a citizen of an entirely different country, meanwhile discovering that your parents were not your real parents and that you had acquired a brand new surname.

A dazzling work of intellectual history by a world-renowned scholar, spanning the years from Peter the Great to the fall of the Soviet Union, this book gives us a clear and sweeping view of Russia not as an eternal barbarian menace but as an outermost, if laggard, member in the continuum of European nations.

The world’s largest exporter of oil is facing mounting problems that could send shock waves through every major economy. Gustafson provides an authoritative account of the Russian oil industry from the last years of communism to its uncertain future. The stakes extend beyond global energy security to include the threat of a destabilized Russia.

Billington describes the contentious discussion occurring all over Russia and across the political spectrum. He finds conflicts raging among individuals as much as between organized groups and finds a deep underlying tension between the Russians' attempts to legitimize their new, nominally democratic identity, and their efforts to craft a new version of their old authoritarian tradition. After showing how the problem of Russian identity was framed in the past, Billington asks whether Russians will now look more to the West for a place in the common European home, or to the East for a new, Eurasian identity.

The first edition of The New Cold War was published to great critical acclaim. 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. Since The New Cold War was first published in February 2008, Russia has become more authoritarian and corrupt, its institutions are weaker, and reforms have fizzled. In this revised and updated third edition, Lucas includes a new preface on the Crimean crisis, including analysis of the dismemberment of Ukraine, and a look at the devastating effects it may have from bloodshed to economic losses. Lucas reveals the asymmetrical relationship between Russia and the West, a result of the fact that Russia is prepared to use armed force whenever necessary, while the West is not. Hard-hitting and powerful, The New Cold War is a sobering look at Russia's current aggression and what it means for the world. This edition includes 30% updated material. It is also fully updated to include an incisive analysis of the Crimean crisis, from Russia's seizure of the region to the dismemberment of Ukraine.