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 colour of one of the greatest experiments in the history of global commerce. What have businesses learnt—or failed to learn—from this adventure, both about Russia and about dynamics between countries and companies in the face of relentless change?


Format Inbunden Omfång 352 sidor Språk Engelska Förlag C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd Utgivningsdatum 2024-11-28 ISBN 9781911723561