The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

by Masha Gessen

“There is an ancient Greek legend about harpies,” she told me. “They are shadows that can come to life only if they drink human blood. The life of a scholar is the life of a shadow. When one participates in making the future happen, even a small part of the future—and this is what politics is about—that is when one who was a shadow can come to life. But for that, one has to drink blood, including one’s own.”