The Toronto Star's Olivia Ward reviews Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution, by Washington Post reporters Peter Baker and Susan Glasser.

An excerpt:

Throughout Kremlin Rising, Baker and Glasser approach two separate and sometimes opposing questions: How Putin won power, and whether there was any victory in it for the beleaguered Russian people.

Putin himself remains something of the classic "mystery wrapped in an enigma," a cold, distant son of a brutally controlling father, a rebellious street kid who replaced the resented father with the equally authoritarian but (for him) respected KGB. A Soviet shape-shifter capable of oiling the wheels of a liberal but corrupt St. Petersburg city administration, and an enforcer determined to crack down on the shady but all-powerful oligarchs who had once propped up the teetering Russian throne.

Putin's triumph was not to flaunt but to consolidate authority. After the orgy of self-seeking under Yeltsin's regime, he restored the nashe, or fellow-feeling, that was a central myth of Soviet times. It means, literally, "ours," an expression of pride in the country, respect for authority and unselfishness.

As a contemporary Russian writer told the authors, after 2000 even the country's culture was moving "back to the U.S.S.R." The uglier consequences have included a return to chauvinism, hatred of minorities and a not entirely undeserved resentment of the West — which has preferred to turn a blind eye to growing evidence of the rollback of civil rights.

To gain control, Putin moved swiftly but strategically, following the Chinese model of "more money, few rights" rather than imposing disastrous Stalinist economic plans. If the new generation of Russians could see a more comfortable future, their democratic urges would be under control. While liberally minded parents chafed to exercise their rights, their 20-something offspring did their exercising in the gym. ...

The bargain was at its most tragic during the Beslan crisis, in which Putin overlooked the despair of the victims' families in typically authoritarian fashion. Instead of comfort, the terrified relatives were given "a pattern of official deception by his government, and finally a lengthy if overdue presidential speech filled with tough talk about hunting down the perpetrators even if it required more trade-offs of Russia's fragile freedoms."

What future is there for Russians now? Baker and Glasser offer no pat prophecies — and in Russia, historically, none can be believed. Russians are accustomed to living with bad bargains. But there are limits even to resignation and cynicism.

"They're not really for democracy," a Moscow high school teacher told the authors, speaking of students who were deeply suspicious of the chaotic capitalism that reduced their parents' lives to rubble.

"But at least their brains are moving."