Tony Wood teaches history at the University of Colorado Boulder. Russia without Putin: Money, Power and the Myths of the New Cold War was published by Verso in 2018. Radical Sovereignty: Debating Race, Nation and Empire in Interwar Latin America was published in December 2025.
Russian history is full of turning points. To the outside observer, there is nothing but upheaval on an unimaginable scale: revolutions, murders, war, starvation – a litany of suffering. Seen from within, these events are no less terrifying. They lack the shape our general terms give them, and perhaps for those experiencing them, shapelessness is a key part of the terror they hold.
Tony Wood talks to James Meek about his book Russia with Putin, which looks at, among other things, the legacy of Soviet infrastructure and the extent of political opposition in today’s...
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