Assignment Moscow

Reporting from Russia has never been easy; Rodgers vividly captures the changing fortunes of Moscow correspondents over the past hundred years, as they penetrated the mysteries of life in Russia and brought them to our newspapers and screens. Some were duped, some were fellow-travellers or spies; most battled against censors and blank-faced politicians; all have helped to shape our understanding of the world's biggest country. * Angus Roxburgh, former Moscow correspondent for the BBC, Sunday Times and Economist *
Writing about journalism in Russia since the revolution, James Rodgers rightly emphasises that to understand Russia you have to talk to people of all kinds. But he argues that even correspondents who knew the language and the history found it hard to report dispassionately because of official obstruction and their own emotional involvement. * Rodric Braithwaite *
A highly original, engrossing and accessible book, Assignment Moscow stands out among journalistic accounts of Russia for its subtlety, humility and historic scope. It tells the story of British and American journalists who aimed to throw light on Russia from Lenin to Putin, and in the process illuminated the West itself. * Arkady Ostrovsky, Author of The Invention of Russia: The Rise of Putin and the age of Fake News, Winner of the 2016 Orwell Prize *
It is hard to believe that in the torrent of books published on Russia each year, that one could come along as original and valuable as Assignment Moscow. One comes to appreciate the service of our reporting men and women in Moscow. For all their fallibilities, without their dedication, we wouldn't have half the understanding of Russia that we have today, imperfect as it will always be. We therefore owe them - and especially Rodgers as journalist, teacher, analyst and cataloguer - a huge debt. * James Nixey, Chatham House *