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Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan,  The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB, The Perseus Books Group, 2010. Publisher's note: The Soviet KGB, the notorious secret police, was all-powerful, but fully under control of the Communist Party. By contrast, the Russian FSB, successor to the Soviet KGB, is solely autonomous and eludes control from even the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin, former director of the FSB and later Russian president and prime minister, made it the main secret service in Russia, permitting it to absorb two former parts of the KGB. In The New Nobility, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan document the rise of the FSB from the inside in the years from 2000–2009. They shed new light on the methods and characters of one of the most closed and secret intelligence communities in the world. They also weigh the FSB’s role as the new elite, granted material wealth, power and prestige. They argue that a newly invented heroism, mixed with the real challenges of terrorism and corruption, has led to the creation of something very different from both the Soviet secret services and the intelligence community in developed countries around the world—and something considerably more troubling.September 2010 • Russia/Current Events • 300 pagesWorld Rights: PublicAffairsThe Perseus Books Group Lecture at LSE:The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGBSpeaker: Andrei SoldatovChair: Dr Roy Allison This event was recorded on 5 October 2010 in Hong Kong Theatre, Clement HouseAndrei Soldatov – a journalist who has covered Russia's security services for more than a decade – penetrates the secret world of the FSB to illustrate how, abetted by their most famous alumnus Vladimir Putin, the security services were given unprecedented rein, and emerged a more shadowy and powerful force than the Soviet KGB. Andrei Soldatov and his The New Nobility co-author Irina Borogan are-founders of Agentura.ru, a highly respected website covering the Russian security services. Soldatov and Borogan worked for Novaya Gazeta from January 2006 to November 2008. Available as: mp3 (approx 87 minutes)