The Man Without a Face

This book by Masha Gessen 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: Alex Gladstein. Every occurrence below links to the episode page and to the exact second it was said on YouTube.

This is the chilling account of how a low-level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the Russian presidency and, in an astonishingly short time, destroyed years of progress and made his country once more a threat to her own people and to the world. Handpicked by the "family" surrounding an ailing and increasingly unpopular Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin seemed like a perfect choice for the oligarchy to shape according to its own designs. Suddenly the boy who had stood in the shadows was a public figure, and his popularity soared.