Free Republic

  BOOKS CITED Central Asia's New States: Independence, Foreign Policy, and Regional Security by Martha Brill Olcott (U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 202 pp., $19.95) Highlanders: A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory by Yo'av Karny (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 436 pp., $15) The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture by Charles King (Hoover Institution Press, 303 pp., $39.95) Ukraine: The Search for a National Identity edited by Sharon L. Wolchik and Volodymyr Zviglyanich (Rowman & Littlefield, 310 pp., $35) Return to the Western World: Cultural and Political Perspectives on the Estonian PostCommunist Transition edited...

This interview is an hour and 18 mins. It's well worth the time to listen. Historian Stephen Kotkin has written 2 volumes on the biography of Stalin and is working on the 3rd and final volume. His knowledge of Russia leading up to Putin is comprehensive. He's optimistic about America and the western world.