Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible - by Peter Pomerantsev (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A journey into the glittering, surreal heart of twenty-first-century Russia, where even dictatorship is a reality show

"A gripping and unsettling account." --Washington Post

Professional killers with the souls of artists, would-be theater directors turned Kremlin puppet masters, Hells Angels who hallucinate themselves as holy warriors: welcome to twenty-first-century Russia. It is a world erupting with new money and new power, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality.

When British producer Peter Pomerantsev plunges into the booming Russian TV industry, he gains access to every nook and corrupt cranny of the country. He meets with propaganda gurus running the nerve center of the Russian media machine, explores Siberian mafia towns, and visits the salons of the international, super-rich oligarchs. As his experience takes him ever deeper into the maze of Putin's Russia, Pomerantsev begins to see the country with new eyes.

Now updated with a new afterword, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible is a piercingly insightful voyage into a country spinning from decadence into madness.

Review Quotes

Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize

Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award

"A brilliant, entertaining, and ultimately tragic book about not only Russia, but the West." --Tablet Magazine

"A patchwork tapestry that leaves you shaking your head in disbelief." --The Guardian

"A riveting portrait of the new Russia with all its corruption, willful power and spasms of unforgettable, poetic glamor. I couldn't put it down." --Tina Brown

"A riveting, urgent book... Pomerantsev is one of the most perceptive, imaginative and entertaining commentators writing on Russia today and, much like the country itself, his first book is seductive and terrifying in equal measure." --The Times (UK)

"A scintillating take on a twisted reality." --Prospect Magazine

"A tale of descending into and eventually emerging from Moscow's hallucinogenic reality." --Foreign Affairs

"Brilliant collection of sketches... powerful, moving and sometimes hilarious." --Washington Times

"Captivating... keen observations." --New York Times Book Review

"Enthralling... His exquisite rendering of mind-control techniques is chilling." --Times Literary Supplement

"Everything you know about Russia is wrong, according to this eye-opening, mind-bending memoir of a TV producer caught between two cultures... The stylish rendering of the Russian culture, which both attracts and appalls the author, will keep the reader captivated." --Kirkus, Starred Review

"Hauntingly perceptive and beautifully written." --New Statesman (UK)

"It is hard to think of another work that better describes today's Russia; Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible may very well be the defining book about the Putin era. This might seem like excessive praise for a relatively short, non-academic memoir by a reality-TV producer now living in London, but it is justified by the author's gimlet eye and reportorial skill." --Commentary Magazine

"Peter Pomeranzev, one of the most brilliant observers of Putin's Russia, describes a country obsessed with illusion and glamor, but with a dangerous, amoral core beneath the surface. Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible is an electrifying, terrifying book." --Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag and Iron Curtain, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction

"Sometimes horrifying but always compelling, this book exposes the bizarre reality hiding beneath the facade of a 'youthful, bouncy, glossy country.'" --Publishers Weekly

"Sparkling... provides great insight into the inner life of Russia's glitterati." --Wall Street Journal

"This is a gripping and unsettling account of life in grim post-Soviet Russia." --Washington Post

"This is the strangest book of note I have ever read... a dark and grotesque comedy of manners... His reporter's straightforward and unlimited curiosity, his willingness to plow and harrow the widest fields for facts, and his exacting descriptive details give him credibility. Plus, what he tells us is so incredible." --P. J. O'Rourke, World Affairs Magazine

About the Author

Peter Pomerantsev is a senior fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of This Is Not Propaganda and How to Win an Information War. He writes for publications including Granta, The Atlantic, Financial Times, London Review of Books, and Politico, among others.