Nothing is true and everything is possible : the surreal heart of the new Russia

by Pomerantsev, Peter,

Format: Print Book 2014
Availability: Available at 6 Libraries 6 of 6 copies
Available (6)
Location Collection Call #
CLP - East Liberty Non-Fiction Collection HN530.2.A8 P665 2014
Location  CLP - East Liberty
 
Collection  Non-Fiction Collection
 
Call Number  HN530.2.A8 P665 2014
 
 
CLP - Main Library Mezzanine - Non-fiction HN530.2.A8 P665 2014
Location  CLP - Main Library
 
Collection  Mezzanine - Non-fiction
 
Call Number  HN530.2.A8 P665 2014
 
 
Monroeville Public Library Non-fiction 947.086 POMERANTSEV
Location  Monroeville Public Library
 
Collection  Non-fiction
 
Call Number  947.086 POMERANTSEV
 
 
Moon Township Public Library Non-Fiction 306.094 POMERANT
Location  Moon Township Public Library
 
Collection  Non-Fiction
 
Call Number  306.094 POMERANT
 
 
Sewickley Public Library Nonfiction 947.086 POM 2014
Location  Sewickley Public Library
 
Collection  Nonfiction
 
Call Number  947.086 POM 2014
 
 
South Park Library Nonfiction 306.0947 POM
Location  South Park Library
 
Collection  Nonfiction
 
Call Number  306.0947 POM
 
 
Summary
In the new Russia, even dictatorship is a reality show.

Professional killers with the souls of artists, would-be theater directors turned Kremlin puppet-masters, suicidal supermodels, Hell's Angels who hallucinate themselves as holy warriors, and oligarch revolutionaries: welcome to the glittering, surreal heart of twenty-first-century Russia. It is a world erupting with new money and new power, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality, home to a form of dictatorship--far subtler than twentieth-century strains--that is rapidlyrising to challenge the West.

When British producer Peter Pomerantsev plunges into the booming Russian TV industry, he gains access to every nook and corrupt cranny of the country. He is brought to smoky rooms for meetings with propaganda gurus running the nerve-center of the Russian media machine, and visits Siberian mafia-towns and the salons of the international super-rich in London and the US. As the Putin regime becomes more aggressive, Pomerantsev finds himself drawn further into the system.

Dazzling yet piercingly insightful, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible is an unforgettable voyage into a country spinning from decadence into madness.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "The new Russia has caught on to the West, adopting its language of democracy and capitalism, all while still state-controlled as it has moved from communism to perestroika to shock therapy to penury to oligarchy to mafia state to mega-rich, declares Pomerantsev. The son of Russian émigrés, raised in England, a self-described third-rate assistant to others' projects, Pomerantsev returned to Russia to work in the fast-growing television and film industry. With little to recommend him other than having lived and worked in London, he was given enormous power and entrée to observe Russia's propaganda machine. He chronicles encounters with leggy blondes studying at gold-digger academies, gangsters turned television producers, legions of expats returning to make money, and international development consultants evangelizing on behalf of democratic capitalism but blind to the realities of the new Russia. Pomerantsev offers a scathing and totally engaging portrait of corruption and illusion in a place of gangsters and glitterati, of sudden dizzying oil wealth, numbing old poverty, and the same old politics wrapped up in exciting new packaging.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2014 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "This debut from television producer Pomerantsev vividly describes the decade, starting in 2001, that he spent in Vladimir Putin's "New Russia" pursuing a film school degree and TV work. Along the way, it reveals the complex truth about 21st-century Russia, with all of its new possibility, wealth, power, and corruption. Born in Kiev but raised in England by exiled Russian parents, Pomerantsev decided to move back to his native country, partly because he felt like he had "always been an observer looking in at Russia" and "wanted to get closer." The book is divided into distinct parts-"Reality Show Russia," "Cracks in the Kremlin Matrix," and "Forms of Delirium"- suggesting the three-act structure taught in modern screenwriting manuals and emphasizing the feel of "performance" in the new Russia. Highlights of the narrative include Pomerantsev's experiences producing a TV documentary called How to Marry a Millionaire (A Gold Digger's Guide), interviewing gangster-turned-movie star Vitaliy Djomochka, attending a lecture by Kremlin propaganda mastermind Vladislav Surkov, and sampling the excess of Moscow nightlife. Sometimes horrifying but always compelling, this book exposes the bizarre reality hiding beneath the facade of a "youthful, bouncy, glossy country." Agency: Melanie Jackson Agency. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved."
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Interviews -- Russia (Federation)
Social change -- Russia (Federation)
Social problems -- Russia (Federation)
Power (Social sciences) -- Russia (Federation)
Corruption -- Russia (Federation)
Authoritarianism -- Social aspects -- Russia (Federation)
Russia (Federation) -- Social conditions -- 1991-
Russia (Federation) -- History -- 1991- -- Biography.
Russia (Federation) -- Economic conditions -- 1991-
Publisher New York :PublicAffairs,2014
Edition First edition.
Other Titles Surreal heart of the new Russia
Nothing's true and everything's possible
Language English
Description vii, 241 pages : illustration ; 25 cm
Bibliography Notes Includes bibliographical references (page 241).
ISBN 9781610394550
1610394550
Other Classic View