First published 2022
Marie Yovanovitch chronicles her rise through the State Department ranks and her sudden fall from grace. The career diplomat built her reputation advancing democracy across the former Soviet Union, serving in Somalia, Russia, and finally Ukraine. Her third ambassadorship in Kyiv ended abruptly when a smear campaign forced her recall. Yovanovitch witnessed Putin's systematic attacks on Ukrainian democracy through election interference, cyberattacks, disinformation, the Crimean annexation, and the Donbas invasion. Her removal coincided with pressure on President Zelenskyy from Trump, revealing how close America had come to abandoning its democratic principles. Despite Trump administration opposition, Yovanovitch chose to testify in the impeachment inquiry. She examines her family's survival under Soviet and Nazi regimes, her early encounters with corruption in male-dominated diplomatic circles, and her front-row seat to the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis. The memoir traces her journey from a diplomat shaped by instability to a public figure who defended Ukrainian interests while serving America.
Genres: history, international-relations, memoir, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, current-affairs, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: memoir, public-figure
Setting: Soviet Union, Somalia, Russia, Ukraine, Crimea, Donbas
Period: 1993, 2010s
416 pages · Hardcover · Mariner Books