Peter Pomerantsev, a television producer born in Kiev and raised in London, describes his years working in Russian television during the Putin era. The book provides an insider's view of the surreal media landscape where government-connected oligarchs funded revolutionary art, where reality television and political propaganda merged, and where truth became an increasingly irrelevant concept. Pomerantsev follows figures ranging from aspiring models recruited by gangsters to Kremlin-connected spin doctors who openly explained their techniques for manipulating public perception. He shows how post-Soviet Russia developed new forms of authoritarianism that operate not through rigid ideology but through confusion, cynicism, and the systematic destruction of any stable sense of reality. The book examines how these techniques have spread beyond Russia to influence Western politics and media. Pomerantsev writes with a novelist's eye for character and scene while providing analytical framework for understanding what he observed. His personal involvement, including his family's Soviet-era experiences and his own conflicted relationship with Russia, gives the narrative emotional depth. Readers will find here both a compelling portrait of Putin-era Russia and a warning about the forms of political manipulation that have become increasingly prominent globally.