The Long Hangover

Publishers Weekly
Intelligent and ambitious, Walker's book succeeds in providing insight into the recent history of a nation at the center of world attention.


Timothy Snyder, the Richard C. Levin Professor of History, Yale University, and author of On Tyranny and Bloodlands The heroes of our age of postmodern myth are the investigative reporters. Shaun Walker has not only done the hard and necessary work of reporting from Russia and Ukraine, he has also reflected, with remarkable historical and literary sensibility, on what it means when a great power gives up on its own future and decides instead to market its past.


John Simpson, BBC News
The Long Hangover is thoughtful, brave, and full of insight. Anyone who wants to understand Russia now needs to read it.


Peter Pomerantsev, author of Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible In this skillful and vivid book, Shaun Walker allows us to understand the region's current affairs through ordinary and extraordinary people's experience of an un-dealt with past.


Elena Racheva, Novaya Gazeta
This book has a very Russian feel to it. As with the best works of Russian literature, stories of ordinary people fold into the bigger picture. The characters cry, laugh, drink, fight, mourn, and celebrate all at once. Fear is mixed with hope, sorrow with pride, and things rarely end well. This is a deep, emotionally charged, and enthralling book that leaves a sad and bitter aftertaste.


Washington Post
[Walker] traveled to the faraway corners of the former Soviet Union and interviewed people whose voices are heard very rarely, especially in the West. The author must be a great listener and a careful interviewer to win the trust and confidence of all these individuals. He takes their stories seriously without dismissing their experiences.


The Guardian
The Long Hangover is considered and careful and humane, and should be compulsory reading for any politician considering engagement with either Moscow or Ukraine. It's not only the best book I've read on Putin's Russia, but also has great resonance for the age of Donald Trump and Brexit: no one likes being told they're a loser, everyone needs something to believe in.


Kirkus
Essential reading for Russia watchers.


The New Republic
Offers a fine-grained portrait of post-Soviet nostalgia and resentment.


14/01/2019

Shaun Walker is a foreign correspondent for The Guardian. He was the paper's Moscow correspondent between 2013 and 2018 and worked as a journalist in Moscow for more than a decade. He studied Russian and Soviet history at Oxford University.

List of Maps Map of Soviet Union Map of Russia Preface to the Paperback Prologue Part 1: Curating the Past Chapter One: A first-tier nation Chapter Two: The sacred war Chapter Three: Chechnya: the deal Chapter Four: Kolyma: the end of the earth Part 2: Curating the Present Chapter Five: The Olympic dream Chapter Six: Ukraine is not dead yet Chapter Seven: The Crimea gambit Chapter Eight: The Crimean Tatars Chapter Nine: Russian Crimea Part 3: The Past Becomes the Present Chapter Ten: Donbass: the spiral Chapter Eleven: War Part 4: The Past in the Future Chapter Twelve: After the war Epilogue Author's Note Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography