Noted Russia scholar Marshall Goldman discusses his recent book – Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia – on Sunday, November 9, at 3:30 p.m. in the Truman Forum at the Plaza Branch, 4801 Main St.

Petrostate examines Russia’s financial collapse in 1998 and its subsequent dramatic re-emergence in the early 21st century as an energy superpower that is now leveraging its new-found wealth for political gain. This “timely and sobering new study” combines scholarship, reporting, and economic analysis “to come to the important conclusion that the new assertiveness of the Kremlin is here to stay,” according to reviewers.

A professor of economics at Wellesley College and associate director of the Harvard Russian Research Center, Goldman earned his doctorate in Russian studies from Harvard in 1961. He has been called “one of Americas most seasoned Kremlin-watchers” and is the author of several books about the former Soviet Union, including The USSR in Crisis: The Failure of an Economic System and Lost Opportunity: What Has Made Economic Reform in Russia So Difficult.