WHO LOST RUSSIA? HOW THE WORLD ENTERED A NEW COLD WAR

Peter Conradi, moderated by Tomasz Sajewicz

Wednesday, March 21, 6 pm | 80 RMB 

The collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 appeared to usher in a remarkable new era of peace and co-operation between Moscow and the West. This, we were told, was the end of history: after decades of struggle, the entire world would embrace enlightenment values and liberal democracy. Reality has proved very different, with each US president leaving relations with Russia in a worse state than he found them. Donald Trump, a self-confessed fan of Vladimir Putin, seemed determined to find a way of breaking out of this dead end. Yet, perversely, his arrival in the White House – and the role the Kremlin is accused of playing in facilitating it – has added yet another complication. Sunday Times foreign editor Peter Conradi witnessed the end of the Cold War from Moscow. In this event he will discuss his new book, where he charts the ups and – mostly – downs of Russia’s relations with the West in the years since, from Boris Yeltsin’s “time of troubles” to the growing authoritarianism of the Putin era. Peter will be in conversation with Tomasz Sajewicz, Asia Correspondent for Polish Public Radio.

Peter Conradi is the author of a number of books, most recently Who Lost Russia: How the World Entered a New Cold War. His previous works include Hitler’s Piano Player and The Great Survivors: How Royalty Made it into the Twenty-First Century. He also wrote (jointly with Mark Logue), The King’s Speech, which told the true story of the events that inspired the multi Oscar-winning film. They are currently working on a sequel, The King’s War, to be published this Autumn. A graduate of Brasenose College, Oxford and Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, he has lived and worked in several countries and currently lives in his native London.

Tomasz Sajewicz is Asia Correspondent for Polish Public Radio, based in Beijing since 2005. In 2003-04 he was a correspondent in Iraq, based in Baghdad and Camp Babylon.