Tony Wood

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  excerpt December 17, 2018

  The Great Divide: Russia and the West

  The events of the past few years have created a glaring divide between Russia and the West, How and why did this happen, In the West, the story of how relations with Russia descended to their current abysmal level is often told as one of an ominous drift, under Putin, back toward a Soviet-style showdown between Moscow and its former adversaries—prompting many to conclude that the two sides found themselves waging a ‘New Cold War’.

  The events of the past few years have created a glaring divide between Russia and the West. How and why did this happen? In the West, the story of how relations with Russia descended to their current abysmal level is often told as one of an ominous drift, under Putin, back toward a Soviet-style showdown between Moscow and its former adversaries—prompting many to conclude that the two sides found themselves waging a ‘New Cold War’. From this perspective, the clashes of the 2000s, especially the Russo-Georgian war of 2008, were early warning signs of Russia’s steady regression to Communist-era

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  politics Dec/Jan 2017

  You’re the Puppet

  In the last few years, even as Russia and the West have become bitterly opposed on one issue after another—Snowden, Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, the hacking allegations—there has been general agreement between them on at least one thing: the absolute centrality of Vladimir Putin. In Russia, he dominates the political stage and the airwaves, and a decade and a half after he first won the presidency, he still enjoys approval ratings that would be the envy of most elected leaders: After the annexation of Crimea, they spiked to over 80 percent, where they have remained ever since. In the West, he has

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  culture June/July/Aug 2015

  Latin America in Construction

  SIXTY YEARS AGO, MoMA’s landmark exhibition “Latin American Architecture Since 1945” surveyed the modernist tide then sweeping the region. Latin America in Construction looks at the quarter century that followed—the high period of desarrollismo (“developmentalism”), when governments of the most varied political complexions converged around a shared agenda of state-led growth. These were years of frantic urbanization—between 1950 and 1980, several major Latin American cities more than trebled in size—creating stark infrastructural challenges. As the book, an exhibition catalogue with accompanying