Source: Macmillan Publishers

This graphic novel biography chronicles Vladimir Putin’s rise from a mid-level KGB officer to the autocratic leader of Russia and reveals the truth behind the strongman persona he has spent his career cultivating.

In the West’s collective imagination, Vladimir Putin is a devious cartoon villain, constantly plotting and scheming to destroy his enemies around the globe and in Ukraine. But how did an undistinguished mid-level KGB officer become one of the most powerful leaders in Russian history? And how much of Putin’s tough-guy persona is a calculated performance?

In Accidental Czar, Andrew S. Weiss, a former White House Russia expert, and Brian “Box” Brown show how Putin has successfully cast himself as a cunning, larger-than-life political mastermind—and how the rest of the world has played into the Kremlin’s hands by treating him as one. They shatter all of these myths and expose the man behind the façade.

Advance Praise

“Accidental Czar is an absorbing and visually stunning account of Vladimir Putin’s rise and take-no-prisoners approach to wielding power on the world stage. Andrew S. Weiss and Brian Brown have made one of the most consequential stories of our time more accessible and engaging for readers of all backgrounds. I would urge anyone who wants to better understand the forces shaping modern Russia, and disrupting our world, to open up this extraordinary book.”
—Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright

“Accidental Czar brilliantly tells the story of Vladimir Putin’s trajectory from a “nobody” in the Soviet KGB to the most powerful man in Russia—and one of the most feared men in the entire world. Andrew S. Weiss and Brian Brown situate Putin’s methods and worldview in centuries of Russian history. It is disturbing, engrossing, and entertaining.”
—Max Boot, historian, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and columnist at Washington Post

“Accidental Czar is a compelling account of Putin’s story, written by one of Washington’s most astute analysts of Russian politics. It will do more to educate the English-speaking world about Putin than dozens of previously published biographies combined!”
—Michael McFaul, former United States ambassador to Russia and professor of political science, Stanford University

“Vladimir Putin has often presented himself as a cartoonish image of a strongman, so it is brilliantly fitting that Accidental Czar uses the graphic form to tell the true story behind the caricature Putin has spent the last two decades cultivating. Bravo!”
—Susan B. Glasser, staff writer at the New Yorker, former Washington Post bureau chief in Moscow, and co-author of Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution

“This biography of Vladimir Putin deftly combines entertainment and serious analysis. Renowned Russia scholar Andrew S. Weiss and artist Brian Brown have found the perfect means to introduce the complexities of Russian politics and Putin’s peculiarities to a new set of audiences. Everyone should have a copy of Accidental Czar on their bookshelf.”
—Fiona Hill, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin

“Engagingly presented and sophisticated in analysis, this handsome graphic novel offers a shrewd understanding of Vladimir Putin’s power and the challenge it presents to the democracies of the West.”
—David Frum, staff writer at The Atlantic, author of Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic, and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush

"With a deceptively simple design and a color palette that mirrors cold war artwork and propaganda posters, Brown’s artwork adds significantly to the text, providing nearly every sentence with some sort of illustration and subsequently breaking up the complicated political science and history surrounding the subject."
—Booklist

"This is a very important book[...]Get it, read it, pass it on."
—Sequential Tart