Description
Book SynopsisFrom Lenin and Stalin to Putin, Russia''s economic development has relied on large scale technologies. These technologies--often called hero projects, projects of the century, or megaprojects--have been central to the nation''s economic growth and military power. Despite their massive environmental and social costs, hero technologies moved ahead in service of the unbridled interests of state officials, the hubris of engineers, and the coalescence of the masses under a national ideology of glorious achievement and military grandeur. In Hero Projects, Paul R. Josephson traces how, over the last one hundred years, the Russian tsars, commissars, and oligarchs embraced megaprojects to create the world''s largest empire. Built by peasants, gulag prisoners, and Communist volunteers, the wide-ranging projects--including pipelines across the tundra, railroads from Europe to the Pacific Ocean, hydropower stations and canals from the northwest to arid Central Asia, and nuclear facilities--forever
