"This book examines the roleof Russia’s energy resources in shaping not only its policy, polity and political processes, but its social identityand worldview, thereby exerting critical influence over Russia’s relations with the rest of the world. The mainthread running through the book is that ‘geography has played a significant role in framinghow the country has been governed —and it continues to do so’ (Chapter 1) in that ‘geographicalspace [is seen] as controllable flows of resources, not as a territory of communities’ (Chapter 2). Russiahas been historically dependent on natural rather than human resources, with the vastness of Russia’snatural wealth located in its periphery, away from its urban centres. A spatiality andmateriality approach thus argues that the natural and human resources of Russia are detached from oneanother, and that this detachment shapes Russia’s polity, understood as broad territorialgovernance." — Diana Bozhilova, Europe-Asia Studies (2021) "It is also possible that resources,and the wealth, power, and security they support, mitigate some of contemporaryRussia’s worst tendencies. One can imagine that a federal state deprived ofresource revenues and lacking physical infrastructure with centralizing effectswould become more, not less authoritarian, and bellicose internationally."— Boris Barkanov, The Russian Review (2021)