Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Descent: Witnessing Russia's Spiral Into Madness Under Putin

The Descent: Witnessing Russia's Spiral Into Madness Under Putin

Bennetts, Marc

Hardcover

Biographies GeneralGeneral Political Science

Publisher Price: $30.00

ISBN10: 1399421697
ISBN13: 9781399421690
Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum
Published: May 26 2026
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.95
Height: 1.10 Width: 5.90 Depth: 9.30
Language: English

An extraordinary first-hand account of Russia's descent into totalitarianism, paranoia and madness.

Marc Bennetts, foreign correspondent for The Times and The Sunday Times, moved to Russia in the chaotic final years of President Yeltsin's rule. Twenty-five years later, The Times pulled him out of Russia over concerns for his security following his arrest in Moscow at a protest against the war in Ukraine.

From the wild 1990s in Moscow to narrowly escaping death under fire in Ukraine, The Descent is a unique and personal diary of how Russia spiraled into violent insanity. Bennetts witnessed the often-terrifying events in Russia up close, observing how the Kremlin's ubiquitous propaganda warped minds and fomented hatred of Putin's foes, at home and abroad, even among people close to him. After leaving Russia, he travelled in war-torn Ukraine, where he came face-to-face with the appalling consequences of this madness.

Bennetts meets a vast array of characters, from pro-war Russian politicians, influential Russian Orthodox Church officials and aggressive Kremlin activists to opposition figures and a Siberian shaman who tried to exorcise Putin, as well as Russians who took up arms to fight Moscow's invading forces. In this extraordinary panorama, Marc Bennetts shows in frightening detail how a society can lose its mind, and how easily a power-hungry leader can reshape an entire country in his own malevolent image.

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