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Flashbulb memories (FBMs) refer to vivid and long-lasting autobiographical memories for the circumstances in which people learned of a shocking and consequential public event. A cross-national study across eleven countries aimed to investigate FBM formation following the first COVID-19 case news in each country and test the effect of pandemic-related variables on FBM. Participants had detailed memories of the date and others present when they heard the news, and had partially detailed memories of the place, activity, and news source. China had the highest FBM specificity. All countries considered the COVID-19 emergency as highly significant at both the individual and global level. The Classification and Regression Tree Analysis revealed that FBM specificity might be influenced by participants' age, subjective severity (assessment of COVID-19 impact in each country and relative to others), residing in an area with stringent COVID-19 protection measures, and expecting the pandemic effects. Hierarchical regression models demonstrated that age and subjective severity negatively predicted FBM specificity, whereas sex, pandemic impact expectedness, and rehearsal showed positive associations in the total sample. Subjective severity negatively affected FBM specificity in Turkey, whereas pandemic impact expectedness positively influenced FBM specificity in China and negatively in Denmark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the ongoing negotiated aspect of the role of NATO, Sarotte's conceptualisation is that "not one inch" was in fact a multifaceted, fluctuating process of joint complicity throughout the 1990s rather than a singular promise between Baker and Gorbachev in 1990. Mary Sarotte's key contribution in I Not One Inch i is to redirect historiographical debates from the end of the Cold War to the post-Cold War period. I Not One Inch i builds on the growing academic reassessment of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enlargement historiography by pushing the discussion from the first, into the second half of the 1990s. [Extracted from the article]

Most importantly, Lovell reminds us that speech does not happen in a neutral, disembodied way; rather, we should always attend to the circumstances of speaking, the speech cultures governing our words and the media that enable and circulate them. 2] Spoken words rushing discordantly, deafeningly through the dam; spoken words inaudible from ten steps away: Stephen Lovell's new book helps us understand both of these powerful images of words as more sound than meaning. How Russia Learned to Talk: A History of Public Speaking in the Stenographic Age, 1860-1930: Stephen Lovell. [Extracted from the article]

Existing literature recognizes growing threats to press freedom around the world and documents changes in the tools used to stifle the independent press. However, few studies investigate how independent media respond to state pressure in an autocracy, documenting the impact of tactics that stop short of shuttering alternatives to state media. Do independent outlets re-orient coverage to favor regime interests? Or does repression encourage more negative coverage of the regime instead? To shed light on these questions, we investigate how the abrupt removal of independent outlet TV Rain from Russian television providers influenced its coverage. We find that shortly after providers dropped TV Rain, the tone of its political coverage became more positive and its similarity with state-controlled Channel 1 increased. However, these effects were short-lived. Additional evidence suggests that subscription revenue contributed to the station's resilience. These findings add to our understanding of media manipulation and authoritarian endurance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Hearne notes, this "bottom-up" approach allows her 'to shift focus away from the dominant discourses of the state and medical professionals to interrogate everyday experiences of the regulation system' (59). Policing Prostitution: Regulating the Lower Classes in Late Imperial Russia: Siobhán Hearne. As Hearne outlines, definitions of prostitution varied by region, in large part due to the relative independence afforded to provincial governors in determining the implementation of regulation. [Extracted from the article]

Tromly examines the attitudes of US officials at the state department, military intelligence and, eventually, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who spearheaded the Unites States' political warfare plans. In his new book, I Cold War Exiles and the CIA: Plotting to Free Russia i , Benjamin Tromly endeavours to tell the story of one of the great failed relationships of the early years of the Cold War, namely that between the United States government and anti-Soviet Russian exiles. [Extracted from the article]

Russia Resurrected. Stoner's book is a fine primer for students new to Russia and looking for a broad understanding of the many changes that took place between 1990 and 2020. Stoner explains how trade and other deals have assured significant, long-term influence for Russia in the Western hemisphere. [Extracted from the article]

It was this model that turned the country into a raw materials appendage to the global economy, hampering economic diversification into high-tech exports that would be crucial to counter the twin effects of climate change and decarbonisation on the Russian economy. In conclusion, Russia seems poised to suffer from the consequences of increasingly lower returns from fossil fuel exports due to climate policies enacted elsewhere: domestically, weak growth will mean stagnating living standards and fewer resources to fight the ravages of climate change; internationally, Russia's status as a great power will be diminished. Finally, questions remain on the sustainability of Russia's recent agricultural revival, given increasing soil degradation and the largely negative effects that climate change is expected to have on crops (Chapter 7). [Extracted from the article]

Overall, I Revealing Schemes i is an ambitious and comprehensive book that contributes to both the literature on post-Soviet politics and the scholarship on conspiracy theories. Radnitz explores the production of conspiracy theories throughout the analysis of an original database of over 1,500 conspiracy claims from 12 post-Soviet states (the 15 republics minus the Baltic states). The Politics of Conspiracy in Russia and the Post-Soviet Region: Scott Radnitz, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021, xiv + 264pp., $99.00 h/b. [Extracted from the article]