May 15, 2003
Nearly all of the books written about Russia in the past ten years, such as Lilia Shevtsova's Putin's Russia and David E.Hoffman's The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia, have indicted the criminal element in Russian politics and society, which seemingly cast lots for the country's lucrative state-owned industries. Satter (Age of Delirium: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and visiting lecturer at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, is the first author to name the causes of rampant criminality and name names beyond the well-documented oligarchs. His book contains much anecdotal evidence of the experiences of present-day Russians to back up his thesis that contemporary Russia skipped the moral lessons of capitalism (antitrust legislation, strong labor unions, etc.) and went directly to the mechanics of transformation to capitalism. According to Satter's bracing analysis, three factors doom Russia to chaos in the future: economic collapse is likely because world oil prices determine the economic destiny of Russia, Putin has set in place an easy road to dictatorship, and severe depopulation from the collapse of the human services sector will soon leave Russia with blank spaces to be occupied by neighbors. The text is nonacademic and offers many emotional stories. Recommended for public libraries.-Harry Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. Syst., Iola
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