The author spent much of 1989 and 1990 living within the Muscovite community and came into contact with people at all levels, from pimps to philosophers. He provides a portrait of a society which is struggling to survive the traumas and changes of the Gorbachev years. In some ways more medieval and Oriental than modern and Western, Moscow is a city in which tales of flying saucers and masonic conspiracies coexist with endless queues, corruption, anti-semitism and a black market in guns. Durden-Smith also discovered in Moscow an intellectual passion and energy which puts most Western capitals to shame and which makes Moscow not only one of the most important, but also one of the most complex, contradictory and fascinating cities on earth. The author has also written "Who Killed George Jackson? - Fantasies, Paranoia and Revolution" and (with Diane de Simone) "Sex and the Brain".
- ISBN10 0394582578
- ISBN13 9780394582573
- Publish Date 12 April 1994 (first published 17 February 1994)
- Publish Status Unknown
- Publish Country AU
- Publisher Random House Australia
- Imprint Knopf Australia
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 318
- Language English