"The #1 New York Times-bestselling author and master of the technothriller returns with his All-Star team. There's a new strong man in Russia but his rise to power is based on a dark secret hidden decades in the past. The solution to that mystery lies with a most unexpected source, President Jack Ryan"--

Russia is a country with no natural borders, no single ethnic group, no true central identity. At the crossroads of Europe and Asia, it has been subject to invasion by outsiders, from Vikings to Mongols, from Napoleon's French to Hitler's Germans. In order to forge an identity, it has mythologized its past to unite its people and to signal strength to outsiders. In a In a Short history of Russia, Mark Galeotti explores the history of this fascinating,...