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David Satter (born in 1947 in Chicago) is an American journalist who wrote books about the decline and fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of post-Soviet Russia.

Life and career

David Satter graduated from the University of Chicago and Oxford University. He worked for the Chicago Tribune and, from 1976 to 1982, as Moscow correspondent of the Financial Times. He then became a special correspondent on Soviet affairs for the Wall Street Journal. He is currently a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the Jamestown Foundation, and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

His books

David Satter made his name writing the non-fiction books Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (1996) and Darkness at Dawn: the Rise of the Russian Criminal State (2003), which describe two consecutive periods of modern Russian history. The first book begins with a quotation from the Russian philosopher Pyotr Chaadaev who wrote in 1829: "We are an exception among people. We belong to those who are not an integral part of humanity but exist only to teach the world some type of great lesson." Satter writes about the lives of ordinary people in periods of dramatic social change and describes the decline of the Soviet economy and ideology, perestroika, the attempted coup of 1991, the economic reforms of the 1990s, the rise of the Russian mafia, the sinking of the Kursk submarine, and the Russian apartment bombings.

Angus Macqueenn found some similarities between his book Darkness at Dawn and Putin's Russia by Anna Politkovskaya: "Both these books underline the moral vacuum that the destruction of the Soviet Union has left. There are no values to believe in except theft." Satter quotes the director of Russia's State Center for Preventive Medicine saying that the depopulation and alcoholism are caused by "the spiritual condition of the Russian people and the failure of the new society to provide a new purpose after the fall of communism."

Documentary films

A documentary film is being made based on David Satter's book Age of Delirium. It is expected to completed by December, 2007. David Satter also appears in the documentary "Disbelief" about the Russian apartment bombings made by director Andrei Nekrasov in 2004.

Notes

1. ^ Nothing left but theft, Review of Darkness at Dawn by Angus Macqueen, Guardian Unlimited
2. Disbelief. The record in IMDB.
3. Google Video

His books

• David Satter. Age of Delirium: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union, Yale University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-300-08705-5
• David Satter. Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State. Yale University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-300-09892-8
• David Satter. The Future of an Illusion. Yale University Press, 2007, ISBN 0-300-11145-2

External links

• His site at the Hoover Institution

• His articles at the Hudson Institute site

See also

• Russian apartment bombings
• History of post-Soviet Russia

• American journalists
• American political writers
• University of Chicago alumni
• 1947 births
• Living people
• Post-Soviet Russia