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A fascinating account of Russia's famous dissident and the politics he embodies. Who is Alexei Navalny? Poisoned in August 2020 and transported to Germany for treatment, the politician returned to Russia in January 2021 in the full glare of the world media. His immediate detention at passport control set the stage for an explosive showdown with Vladimir Putin. But Navalny means very different things to different people. To some, he is a democratic hero. To others, he is betraying the Motherland. To others still, he is a dangerous nationalist. This book explores the many dimensions of Navalny's political life, from his pioneering anti-corruption investigations to his ideas and leadership of a political movement. It also looks at how his activities and the Kremlin's strategies have shaped one another. Navalny makes sense of this divisive character, revealing the contradictions of a man who is the second most important political figure in Russia--even when behind bars. In order to understand modern Russia, you need to understand Alexei Navalny.
This comprehensive study of Russian electoral politics shows the vulnerability of Putin's regime as it navigates the risks of voter manipulation.
Offers a groundbreaking analysis of the distinctive substantive, theoretical and methodological contributions of subnational research in the field of comparative politics.
The Russian protests, sparked by the 2011 Duma election, have been widely portrayed as a colourful but inconsequential middle-class rebellion, confined to Moscow and organized by an unpopular opposition. In this sweeping new account of the protests, Mischa Gabowitsch challenges these journalistic clichés, showing that they stem from wishful thinking and media bias rather than from accurate empirical analysis. Drawing on a rich body of material, he analyses the biggest wave of demonstrations since the end of the Soviet Union, situating them in the context of protest and social movements across Russia as a whole. He also explores the legacy of the protests in the new era after Ukraines much larger Maidan protests, the crises in Crimea and the Donbass, and Putins ultra-conservative turn. As the first full-length study of the Russian protests, this book will be of great value to students and scholars of Russia and to anyone interested in contemporary social movements and political protest.
As the world’s second-largest economy, China is extending its influence across the globe with the complicity of democratic nations. Joanna Chiu has spent a decade tracking China’s propulsive rise, from the political aspects of its multi-billion-dollar “New Silk Road” global investment project to its growing sway over foreign countries and multilateral institutions through “United Front” efforts. For too long, Western societies have mishandled or simply ignored Beijing’s actions, out of narrow self-interest. Over time, Chiu argues, decades of willful misinterpretation have become harmful complicity in the toxic diplomacy, human rights abuses and foreign interference seen from China today. Engaging chapters transport readers to a frozen lake in Russia, protests in Hong Kong, underground churches in Beijing, and exile Uyghur communities in Turkey, exposing Beijing’s high-tech surveillance and aggressive measures, which result in human rights violations against those who challenge its power. The new world disorder documented in China Unbound lays out its disturbing implications for global stability, prosperity, and civil rights everywhere.
Moneyball meets medicine in this remarkable chronicle of one of the greatest scientific quests of our time and the visionary mastermind behind it. Medical doctor and economist Christopher Murray began the Global Burden of Disease study to gain a truer understanding of how we live and how we die. While it is one of the largest scientific projects ever attempted—as breathtaking as the first moon landing or the Human Genome Project—the questions it answers are meaningful for every one of us: What are the world's health problems? Who do they hurt? How much? Where? Why? Murray argues that the ideal existence isn't simply the longest, but the one lived well and with the least illness. Until we...
*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER (May 2020)* 'Really good ... accessible, sometimes shocking, honest, and feels written from the heart' - Bernardine Evaristo 'I gobbled it in one weekend and encourage everyone - mother, or otherwise - to do the same' - Pandora Sykes 'Remarkable' - Lorraine Kelly 'Searing' - Dolly Alderton 'I absolutely loved I Am Not Your Baby Mother' - Giovanna Fletcher 'Brilliant' - Sophie Ellis-Bextor 'An essential exploration of the realities of black motherhood in the UK' - Observer 'Urgent part-memoir, part-manifesto about black motherhood' - Red '[An] original and much-needed guide to navigating black motherhood' - Cosmopolitan 'The woman bringing a fresh perspective to t...
The Benin Bronzes are among the British Museum’s most prized possessions. Celebrated for their great beauty, they embody the history, myth and artistry of the ancient Kingdom of Benin, once West Africa’s most powerful, and today part of Nigeria. But despite the Bronzes’ renown, little has been written about the brutal imperial violence with which they were plundered. Paddy Docherty’s searing new history tells that story: the 1897 British invasion of Benin. Armed with shocking details discovered in the archives, Blood and Bronze sets this assault in its late Victorian context. As British power faced new commercial and strategic pressures elsewhere, it ruthlessly expanded in West Africa. Revealing both the extent of African resistance and previously concealed British outrages, this is a definitive account of the destruction of Benin. Laying bare the Empire’s true motives and violent means, including the official coverup of grotesque sexual crimes, Docherty demolishes any moral argument for Britain retaining the Bronzes, making a passionate case for their immediate repatriation to Nigeria.
Red Britain sets out a provocative rethinking of the cultural politics of mid-century Britain by drawing attention to the extent, diversity, and longevity of the cultural effects of the Russian Revolution. Drawing on new archival research and historical scholarship, this book explores the conceptual, discursive, and formal reverberations of the Bolshevik Revolution in British literature and culture. It provides new insight into canonical writers including Doris Lessing, George Orwell, Dorothy Richardson, H.G Wells, and Raymond Williams, as well bringing to attention a cast of less-studied writers, intellectuals, journalists, and visitors to the Soviet Union. Red Britain shows that the cultur...
Often dismissed as window-dressing, nominally democratic institutions, such as legislatures and political parties, play an important role in non-democratic regimes. In a comprehensive cross-national study of all non-democratic states from 1946 to 2002 that examines the political uses of these institutions by dictators, Gandhi finds that legislative and partisan institutions are an important component in the operation and survival of authoritarian regimes. She examines how and why these institutions are useful to dictatorships in maintaining power, analyzing the way dictators utilize institutions as a forum in which to organize political concessions to potential opposition in an effort to neutralize threats to their power and to solicit cooperation from groups outside of the ruling elite. The use of legislatures and parties to co-opt opposition results in significant institutional effects on policies and outcomes under dictatorship.