Aiming to explain many Russians' ambivalence to recent changes, this work examines the unequal distribution of the costs and benefits of reform, its impact on the socioeconomic structure of the population, and the ways in which these changes violate social perceptions of equity and fairness.

Now expanded to cover the consequences of Russia's 1998 financial collapse, this book focuses on the social consequences of a modern-day great depression. The text examines the unequal distribution of the costs and benefits of Russia's leap into capitalism. The topics covered include: the emergence of the "new poor"; the recruitment of a business elite; the changing social and economic status of women; and the impact of marketization on employment. The study draws on a range of statistics and survey research data to present a portrait of the lives and circumstances of comtemporary Russians.

During and after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, a wide range of competitors fought to build new political and economic empires by wresting control over resources from the state and from each other. In the only book to examine the evolution of Russian property ownership in both industry and agriculture, Andrew Barnes uses interviews, archival research, and firsthand observation to document how a new generation of capitalists gained control over key pieces of the Russian economy by acquiring debt-ridden factories and farms once owned by the state. He argues that although the Russian government made policies that affected how actors battled one another, it could never rein in the most destructive aspects of the struggle for property. Barnes shows that dividing the spoils of the Soviet economy involved far more than the experiment with voucher privatization or the scandalous behavior of a few Moscow-based "oligarchs." In Russia, the control of property yielded benefits beyond mere profits, and these high stakes fueled an intense, enduring, and profound conflict over real assets. This fierce competition empowered the Russian executive branch at the expense of the legislature, dramatically strengthened managers in relation to workers, created a broad array of business conglomerates, and fundamentally shaped regional politics, not only blurring the line between government and business but often erasing it.

Rebecca Kay assesses how men in post-Soviet Russia are represented through media and popular discourses. Using case studies she explores the challenges which have arisen for men since 1991 and the ways in which their responses are shaped by and viewed through the prism of widely accepted attitudes towards gender. The lives and concerns of men in provincial Russia are examined through ethnographic fieldwork, combining extensive participant observation with in-depth interviews. The book reveals how individual men strive to maintain a sense of equilibrium between the activities in which they are engaged and the ways in which they are perceived, both by others and by themselves. The findings of the research have produced significant areas of contrast and comparison with the author's earlier work on women. This is drawn out throughout the book, placing the study of Russian men in a broader gendered context. The issues raised by the men mirror concerns discussed in men's studies literature and popular discourse beyond Russia. The book is therefore of interest to a wider international audience as well as contributing to ongoing interdisciplinary debates, in Russian Studies, Anthropology, Sociology and Human Geography, addressing the need for new approaches to understanding post-Socialist change.

Saskia Sassen is Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago and Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics.

This book examines economic and political polarisation in post-Soviet Russia, and in particular analyses the development of rural inequality. It discusses how rural inequality has developed in post-Soviet Russia, and how it differs from the Soviet period, and goes on to look at the factors that affect rural stratification and inequality, using human and social capital, profession, gender, and village location as independent variables. The book uses survey data from rural households and fieldwork in Russia in order to highlight the multiplicity of divisions that act as fault lines in contemporary rural Russia.

Social differentiation, poverty and the emergence of the newly rich occasioned by the collapse of the Soviet Union have seldom been analysed from a class perspective. Rethinking Class in Russia addresses this absence by exploring the manner in which class positions are constructed and negotiated in the new Russia. Bringing an ethnographic and cultural studies approach to the topic, this book demonstrates that class is a central axis along which power and inequality are organized in Russia, revealing how symbolic, cultural and emotional dimensions are deeply intertwined with economic and material inequalities. Thematically arranged and presenting the latest empirical research, this interdisciplinary volume brings together work from both Western and Russian scholars on a range of spheres and practices, including popular culture, politics, social policy, consumption, education, work, family and everyday life. By engaging with discussions in new class analysis and by highlighting how the logic of global neoliberal capitalism is appropriated and negotiated vis-à-vis the Soviet hierarchies of value and worth, this book offers a multifaceted and carefully contextualized picture of class relations and identities in contemporary Russia and makes a contribution to the theorisation of class and inequality in a post-Cold War era. As such it will appeal to those with interests in sociology, anthropology, geography, political science, gender studies, Russian and Eastern European studies, and media and cultural studies.