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Jonathan Dimbleby - Russia (2nd Hand Hardback)
Synopsis
Subtitled : A Journey to the Heart of a Land and its People.
Winston Churchill famously described Russia as 'a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma'. Even today it remains a country little understood by the West. But as a resurgent world power, with an energy-rich economy, we ignore Russia at our peril.
In this revealing portrait, distinguished author and broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby crosses eight time zones and covers 10,000 miles, from Murmansk in the Arctic Circle to the Asian city of Vladivostok, in an attempt to get beneath the skin of modern Russia. Travelling by road, rail and boat, his epic journey takes him from the neo-classical splendour of St Petersburg to remote and inaccessible parts of Siberia.
At the heart of this magisterial account are Jonathan's encounters with a diverse range of ordinary Russians - from urban intellectuals and the new class of entrepreneurs, to impoverished peasants and Russia's ethnic minorities struggling to cling to their distinctive identities.
Jonathan was the only British television journalist to interview President Gorbachev during the Cold War, and, returning to Russia for the first time since those days, he discovers a land transformed. But despite economic progress, he finds aspects of Russian society deeply troubling, and takes an unflinchingly critical look at the way Russia has been run during the Putin years.
For Jonathan, crossing the immense Russian landmass became as much an interior journey as an exterior one, and the book contains painfully honest passages as he struggles to meet the challenges of an arduous film trip against the backdrop of great turbulence in his personal life. Filled with a dazzling array of historical and literary references, Russia - A Journey to the Heart of a Land and its People is a riveting and illuminating account of modern Russia.
Details
- Format : Thick 2nd Hand Hardback with Dust Jacket
- Condition : Very Good
- Category : Non-Fiction - Travel & Guidebooks
- Published : 2008 (BBC Books - 1st Edition)
- ISBN : 9780563539124
- SKU : B002606
- PPC : SP900gm
- RRP : £25.00 (Unclipped)
- Quantity Available : 1 only.
External Reviews
"Excellent, absolutely worth reading, this is an incredibly riveting exploration of the mesmerizingly diverse, beautifully and liberatingly immense, but also exasperatingly contradictory country" - Goodreads Review.
"The account of Jonathan Dimbleby's journey, not only in Russia, but also his personal journey, is gripping . I became aware of situations in Russia of which I had only been vaguely aware. For example, the sheer size of the country, the nature of Siberia, the volume of its resources and their potential influence in world economics, even more than that of China." - Amazon Review.