This book traces the life of free speech in Russia from the final years of the Soviet Union to the present. It shows how long-cherished hopes for an open society in which people would speak freely and tell truth to power fared under Gorbachev s glasnost; how free speech was a real, if fractured, achievement of Yeltsin s years in power; and how easy it was for Putin to reverse these newly won freedoms, imposing a patrimonial media that sits comfortably with old autocratic and feudal traditions. The book explores why this turn seemed so inexorable and now seems so entrenched. It examines the...