Dispatches From Dystopia

"Others will speak in mournful tones of what is lost, what I call rustalgia. As opposed to ruins porn, rustalgia can help show how sketchy is the long standing faith in the necessity of perpetual economic growth."

Kate Brown

Dispatches From Dystopia

This book piqued my interest, initially, because it was in the travel adventure section in the store. A travel adventure about the places that no one wants to go is bound to be interesting. So, I picked it up and was not disappointed.  Kate Brown tells a very interesting story; the book is a genre bender. It could easily fit in history, social sciences, and biography. 

In the book, the author talks of the trips that she has made to Russia for historical research. By including herself in the narrative, something that few do in academic writing, she allows us to see how she has shaped the stories she found, either by the questions she asks or the topics she focuses on. By doing this, she argues that history is tied to place. She looks and interviews people in Ukraine and Russia that were involved in the resettlement that occurred, and compares their stories to those told in the united states, particularly in the west and Midwest during the turn of the century. The stories of the people from those two very different parts of the world are not as different as you might think.

I enjoyed this book. The writing is academic but highly accessible, and by including her own narrative the author made the stories very relate-able. A mixture of biography, anthropology, travel memoir, and academic essay, this book kept me on my toes, and was a wonderful look at life in the USSR.