Orlando Figes, The Story of Russia

 Not really a history of Russia, more a history of the story of Russia, and how the myths of the past have been used to construct the world view of Putin and other russian nationalists. The idea of a Greater Russia including all they consider russians, and wider than that a Slavic union dominated by Russia, Russia as defender of the true faith, Russia as the defender of the west against the barbarian east, Russia as the defender of tradition against malign western influence. Even Stalin gets rehabilitated in this version of Russian history as a patriot strongman defending his people from invasion. Very chilling and very timely