The Long Hangover

Putin’s New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past

By: Shaun Walker

Narrated by: Michael Page

In The Long Hangover, Shaun Walker provides new insight into contemporary Russia and its search for a new identity, telling the story through the country's troubled relationship with its Soviet past. Walker not only explains Vladimir Putin's goals and the government's official manipulations of history, but also focuses on ordinary Russians and their motivations. He charts how Putin raised victory in World War II to the status of a national founding myth in the search for a unifying force to heal a divided country, and shows how dangerous the ramifications of this have been.

The book explores why Russia, unlike Germany, has failed to come to terms with the darkest pages of its past: Stalin's purges, the Gulag, and the war deportations. The narrative roams from the corridors of the Kremlin to the wilds of the Gulags and the trenches of east Ukraine. It puts the annexation of Crimea and the newly assertive Russia in the context of the delayed fallout of the Soviet collapse.

Packed with analysis but told mainly through vibrant reportage, The Long Hangover is a thoughtful exploration of the legacy of the Soviet collapse and how it has affected life in Russia and Putin's policies.

©2018 Shaun Walker (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Very educational

The book is written fairly, but it's not going to make Putin happy. I admire Shaun Walker's courage in bringing us these stories.

We wre all same!

Putin didn't do anything different from any western President! Stalin did transfer Russian people to gulag but English Empire United States too, sail the ship's come to Africa, hunt the people transported innocent Africans force them to work and kill them as they pleased! President Kennedy wanted Nuclear war back in 1962, or CCCR must to remove nuclear weapons from Cuba! Today Putin don't want NATO weapons in Ukraine! We are all same tragedy is even worse we Westerners claim democracy but doing same as dictatorship Russia!

Fascinating and fair book on Putin's Russia

Would you listen to The Long Hangover again? Why?

No, I would not listen to it again. It was a good book but not one I would want or need to listen to again.

What aspect of Michael Page’s performance would you have changed?

Oh my. The narration almost forced me to stop listening. It's "queen's" English to the nth degree. He's over pronouncing everything and at the same time it sounds like he's literally chewing the words. I got used to it after awhile but found it so incredibly distracting at first. I really wanted to attain the info so I was pretty motivated to keep listening.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The character studies, the compassion Shawn obviously has for the regular folks of the former Soviet Union is palpable. The best part of the book for me.

Any additional comments?

Something I don't think we in the west understand. Putin and his regime literally think our media is like their's, manufactured from whole cloth. He doesn't get how democracies work and never will. He would love nothing more than his lifelong nemesis, the US, to die, the sooner the better. Congrats guys, you voted in just the guy to kill your country for Putin - DJT.

Enlightening

Non-biased extremely well reported work that shines a light on a part of the world I didn’t know much about besides the broad strokes reported in the news

One of the best books about modern Russian politics

This is one of the best books I’ve read about modern Russian politics and what motivates them. Walker gets Russia in way westerners rarely do and Page did a valiant job narrating. Well done all around!