Philip Short is the author of acclaimed biographies of Pol Pot, Mao Zedong and Francois Mitterrand. He worked for ten years as the BBC's Paris correspondent and lives in France.
Magisterial... based on access to a Who's Who of senior politicians, diplomats and intelligence sources. * Guardian * An exhaustive profile * Daily Telegraph, *Books of the Year* * Exceptional... unlikely to be matched as a study of the man... It is readable, judicious, critical but balanced and focused on Putin the person rather than on the Putin regime * The Irish Times * [A] revealing and compellingly granular biography * Times Literary Supplement * Anyone wanting to learn more about Putin's personality, ideas, power and the threat he has come to pose to world peace should read this outstanding biography -- Ian Kershaw