Mikhail Zygar

'TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN . . .' On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union begins its countdown. From the steppes of Kazakhstan, the first human — Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin — launches into space. In that moment, another countdown begins. How could it be that a single generation — just three decades — would separate the USSR's crowning achievement from...

All the Kremlin's Men is a gripping narrative of an accidental king and a court out of control. Based on an unprecedented series of interviews with Vladimir Putin's inner circle, this book presents a radically different view of power and politics in Russia. The image of Putin as a strongman is dissolved. In its place is a weary figurehead buffeted—if...

'History is made up of myths,' writes the renowned Russian dissident journalist Mikhail Zygar. 'Alas, our myths led us to the fascism of 2022. It is time to expose them.' Drawing from his perilous career investigating the frontiers of the Russian empire, Zygar reveals how 350 years of propaganda, bad historical scholarship, folk tales and fantasy spurred his nation into...

"History is made up of myths," writes the renowned Russian dissident journalist Mikhail Zygar. "Alas, our myths led us to the fascism of 2022. It is time to expose them." Drawing from his perilous career investigating the frontiers of the Russian empire, Zygar reveals how 350 years of propaganda, bad historical scholarship, folk tales, and fantasy spurred his nation into...

A dramatic account of a year of two revolutions in Russia, told through extracts from contemporary diaries, letters and memoirs, and illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs. 1917: The Year that Changed the World is a dramatic and compelling account of Russia's revolutionary year as told by those who lived through it (not just in Russia). The book consists entirely...

The Empire Must Die portrays the vivid drama of Russia's brief and exotic experiment with civil society before it was swept away by the despotism of the Communist Revolution. The window between two equally stifling autocracies—the imperial family and the communists—was open only briefly, from the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of World War...