Here is a list of the best Putin books, some I have read myself, some that I did research on, and all have great reviews!
- The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin (2016)
- House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia (2019)
- The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (2013)
- We Need to Talk About Putin: How the West Gets Him Wrong (2019)
- First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President (2000)
- Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Geopolitics in the 21st Century) (2015)
- Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? (2015)
- Letters to Putin: A Son’s Story of Betrayal (2019)
- Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain (2019)
- Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews: Antisemitism, Propaganda, and the Displacement of Ukrainian Jewry (2019)
- Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia (2017)
- The Putin Interviews (Showtime Documentary Films) (2017)
- Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus (2019)
The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin (2016)
In this gripping narrative of Putin’s rise to power, Steven Lee Myers recounts Putin’s origins–from his childhood of abject poverty in Leningrad to his ascent through the ranks of the KGB, and his eventual consolidation of rule in the Kremlin. As the world struggles to confront a bolder Russia, the importance of understanding the formidable and ambitious Vladimir Putin has never been greater.
House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia (2019)
House of Trump, House of Putin offers the first comprehensive investigation into the decades-long relationship among Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Mafia that ultimately helped win Trump the White House. It is a chilling story that begins in the 1970s, when Trump made his first splash in the booming, money-drenched world of New York real estate, and ends with Trump’s inauguration as president of the United States.
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (2013)
The Man Without a Face 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 as a successor 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.
We Need to Talk About Putin: How the West Gets Him Wrong (2019)
Meet the world's most dangerous man. Who is the real Vladimir Putin? What does he want? And what will he do next? Despite the millions of words written on Putin's Russia, the West still fails to truly understand one of the world's most powerful politicians, whose influence spans the globe and whose networks of power reach into the very heart of our daily lives.
First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President (2000)
Who is this Vladimir Putin? Who is this man who suddenly–overnight and without warning–was handed the reigns of power to one of the most complex, formidable, and volatile countries in the world? How can we trust him if we don’t know him? First Person is an intimate, candid portrait of the man who holds the future of Russia in his grip.
Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Geopolitics in the 21st Century) (2015)
From the KGB to the Kremlin: a multidimensional portrait of the man at war with the West. Where do Vladimir Putin’s ideas come from? How does he look at the outside world? What does he want, and how far is he willing to go? The great lesson of the outbreak of World War I in 1914 was the danger of misreading the statements, actions, and intentions of the adversary. Today, Vladimir Putin has become the greatest challenge to European security and the global world order in decades.
Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? (2015)
The raging question in the world today is who is the real Vladimir Putin and what are his intentions. Karen Dawisha’s brilliant Putin’s Kleptocracy provides an answer, describing how Putin got to power, the cabal he brought with him, the billions they have looted, and his plan to restore the Greater Russia.Russian scholar Dawisha describes and exposes the origins of Putin’s kleptocratic regime.
Letters to Putin: A Son’s Story of Betrayal (2019)
“This is a way of taking over the USA [and] could take as many as two million people in one stroke.”How far will one man go when his lifetime of narcissism is left unchecked and his insecurities crystallize to panic? How far will you allow that person to stoke fear and animosity in the hearts of others?
Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain (2019)
Now in a thoroughly revised, expanded, and updated edition, this classic text provides the most authoritative and current analysis of contemporary Russia. Leading scholars explore the daunting domestic and international problems Russia confronts, considering a comprehensive array of economic, political, foreign policy, and social issues.
Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews: Antisemitism, Propaganda, and the Displacement of Ukrainian Jewry (2019)
Drawn from journalist Sam Sokol's reporting during the first years of the Donbas War, Putin's Hybrid War and the Jews chronicles the collapse of Jewish life in the regions of eastern Ukraine occupied by Russian-backed separatist militias in 2014.
Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia (2017)
More than twenty years ago, the NPR correspondent Anne Garrels first visited Chelyabinsk, a gritty military-industrial center a thousand miles east of Moscow. The longtime home of the Soviet nuclear program, the Chelyabinsk region contained beautiful lakes, shuttered factories, mysterious closed cities, and some of the most polluted places on earth.
The Putin Interviews (Showtime Documentary Films) (2017)
Academy Award winner Oliver Stone was able to secure what journalists, news organizations, and even other world leaders have long coveted: extended, unprecedented access to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus (2019)
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it invaded Georgia. Both states are part of Russia’s “near abroad”–newly independent states that were once part of the Soviet Union and are now Russia’s neighbors. While the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 faded from the headlines in the wake of the global recession, the geopolitical contest that created it did not.
Best Putin Books That Will Hook You
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some putin books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Behind Putin’s Curtain: Friendships and Misadventures Inside Russia
Author(s): Stephan Orth
ID: 2366618, Publisher: Greystone Books, Year: 7 May 2019, Size: 6 Mb, Format: epub
War with Russia: From Putin and Ukraine To Trump and Russiagate
Author(s): Stephen F. Cohen
ID: 2301641, Publisher: Hot Books, Year: 27 Nov 2018, Size: 508 Kb, Format: epub
Putin and the Oligarch: The Khodorkovsky-Yukos Affair
Author(s): Richard Sakwa
ID: 2387292, Publisher: Bloomsbury UK, Year: 25 Feb 2014, Size: 7 Mb, Format: epub
Please note that this booklist is not final. Some books are truly chart-busters according to Los Angeles Times, others are drafted by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant links you could recommend? Leave a comment if you have any feedback on the list.