The sweeping, revelatory history of post-Soviet Russia from the great dissident exile

In The Future is History Masha Gessen follows the lives of four Russians, born as the Soviet Union crumbled, at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children or grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own - as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths not only against the machinations of the regime that would seek to crush them all (censorship, intimidation, violence) but also against the war it waged on understanding itself, ensuring the unobstructed emergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today's terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. The Future is History is a powerful and urgent cautionary tale by contemporary Russia's most fearless inquisitor.

"Indispensable" - Guardian

"Masha Gessen is a brave and eloquent critic of the Putin regime" - The Times

"Impassioned" - Daily Telegraph

"In The Future is History, Masha Gessen demonstrates how nostalgia has changed the fabric of Russian society. More than 25% of Russians believe that Stalin's rule was good for the country. Gessen's analysis reveals how imperial nostalgia goes hand in hand with an increase in nationalism, isolationism, sexism and homophobia... Memory is a responsibility. We ought to remember the past, not only in its polished glories but also its atrocities and injustices" - Guardian