This book by Nikolai Leonov came up once on Lex Fridman in the episodes we index. That mention was a genuine on-air recommendation, not just a passing reference. The people who brought it up: Stephen Kotkin. Every occurrence below links to the episode page and to the exact second it was said on YouTube.
Every time it came up
Stephen Kotkin: Putin, Stalin, Hitler, Zelenskyy, and War in Ukraine | Lex Fridman Podcast #289
“he has the best memoir on the soviet collapse which is known in russian as yeah you will understand that”— Stephen Kotkin
The guest here is Stephen Kotkin: One of the foremost historians of 20th and 21st century Russia and Eastern Europe, author of the definitive multi-volume biography of Stalin. A scholar at Princeton (moving to Stanford) known for his theory of Russia's 'perpetual geopolitics.'. Historian Stephen Kotkin dismantles the 'NATO made Putin do it' narrative and frames Russia's war on Ukraine as a recurring strategic choice.
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