Book Talk. “Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia” @ The Harriman Institute

Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on March 26, 2025 in order to attend this event.

Please join the Harriman Institute for a book talk by Charles Hecker. Moderated by Alexander Cooley.

When the hammer and sickle came down in late 1991, Russia’s feverish new market opened for business. From banking to breweries, sectors emerged out of nowhere, in a country that had never had a functioning economy. For the next three turbulent decades, a wild, proto-capitalist free-for-all transformed Russian society.

Then, in 2022, Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The market started to collapse; Western firms fled Moscow’s skyscrapers. No country this large had ever transformed itself as dizzyingly as 1990s Russia–now, just as dramatically, it was over. The intervening decades had seen phenomenal successes and crushing failures; the creation and destruction of enormous fortunes. How did it all happen?

“Zero Sum” brings to life the complex, vivid color of one of…