Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State

Anticipating a new dawn of freedom after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russians could hardly have foreseen the reality of their future a decade later: a country impoverished and controlled at every level by organized crime. This riveting book views the 1990s reform period through the experiences of individual citizens, revealing the changes that have swept Russia and their effect on Russia’s age-old ways of thinking.

“The Russia that Satter depicts in this brave, engaging book cannot be ignored. Darkness at Dawn should be required reading for anyone interested in the post-Soviet state.”―Christian Caryl, Newsweek

“Satter must be commended for saying what a great many people only dare to think.”―Matthew Brzezinski, Toronto Globe and Mail

“Humane and articulate.”―Raymond Asquith, Spectator

“Vivid, impeccably researched and truly frightening. . . . Western policy-makers, especially in Washington, would do well to study these pages.”―Martin Sieff, United Press International

David Satter, former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times of London, is affiliated with the Hoover Institution, the Hudson Institute, and the Johns Hopkins University Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is the author of Age of Delirium: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union, also available from Yale University Press.