I was a Russian history major in college at a time when the Soviet Union was still in full swing. My studies stretched into the modern Soviet state. Gessen's very readable and accessible book was well crafted, went over themes in modern Russian history with which I was only lightly familiar, and brought me up to date in at least an impressionist way. Eternal Russia, whose people always tend to be as stalwart as their political system tends to be totalitarian. I look forward to reading The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.