In this powerful and complicated book about Putin’s war on women, Sogi Oksanen draws on her speech from a 2023 conference at the Swedish Academy for this sobering and deeply relevant new book. In identifying the centrality of misogyny to Putin’s Russia and the ways in which violence and mistreatment of women has become a hallmark of Russian policy for nearly a century, Oksanen’s book is rooted in her family’s history and Russian history and calls attention to this larger crisis and threat towards women and, therefore, democracy. Highlighting the ways in which misogyny is enforced in Russia, Oksanen’s argument can be extrapolated to other civilizations and societies dealing with similar expressions of misogyny and democratic crises. Serious and not mincing words, this book is occasionally a difficult read but is definitely relevant to historians and general readers alike. Oksanen has done an excellent job identifying the larger factors at play and breaking the argument down with case studies and specific examples. The book is easy to read with straightforward prose, and Owen F. Witesman has done a brilliant job translating this powerful and relevant read from Finnish so readers around the world can understand and absorb Oksanen’s poignant argument.

The author starts with a true story that reads like an allegory: My great-aunt stopped speaking after she was interrogated by the Russians. The reality of her experiences is left to the reader's imagination, and the horror of the Soviet regime is only expanded on from their. The author has family that lived in Estonia under Soviet occupation and as a child she developed the sense of how life was different for her family in Estonia than it was in Finland.

This book is well-researched, studying the aftermath of the Soviet War to the current war in Ukraine. She also identifies important foreshadowing that was missed in the early 2000s and 2014-2015 as Putin rose to power and began asserting his authority. There are important lessons to be learned from Eastern Europe, as Putin's playbook is likely to be played out in the US under Trump.

The author does put much of her focus on women, and what was interesting to me is how Russian women are weaponized and propagandized to encourage their sons and husbands to inflict punishment. The disparity in quality of living between Russia and other Baltic countries was also very surprising to me. These are global issues, but ones we may find ourselves facing, so it's an important read.