A Fistful of Rubles: The Rise and Fall of the Russian Banking System. By Juliet Johnson. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000. 244p. $29.95.

Extract

For the field of Russian comparative politics, the collapse of Soviet communism abruptly shifted attention from commissars and commanders to businessmen and bankers. Since the mid-1990s, it has become increasingly evident that a small cohort of newly rich financiers was influencing the course of Russia's transition. Yet it was not always clear in what ways and to what extent these upstart tycoons were acting as political players. With this book, the field at last has an authoritative, systematic rendering of the banking sector. Juliet Johnson chronicles the good, the bad, and the ugly of Russia's big bankers during the postcommunist regime's formative decade.