(Myers, Steven Lee) Steven Lee Myers has worked at the New York Times for twenty-six years, seven of them in Russia during the period when Putin consolidated his power. He spent two years as bureau chief in Baghdad, covering the winding down of the American war in Iraq, and now covers national security issues. The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin (Vintage) is his first book. In this gripping narrative of Putin’s rise to power, Steven Lee Myers recounts Putin’s origins–from his childhood of abject poverty in Leningrad to his ascent through the ranks of the KGB, and his eventual consolidation of rule in the Kremlin. The New Tsar is a staggering achievement, a deeply researched and essential biography of one of the most important and destabilizing world leaders in recent history, a man whose merciless rule has become inextricably bound to Russia’s foreseeable future.
