Feel free to suggest the appropriate title/subtitle combination for the book, or to propose new ones.
EDIT 9/11: And the final results are:
| Putinophobia | 3 |
| Putin Derangement Syndrome | 10 |
| Through Western Eyes | 7 |
| When the Truth Doesn’t Matter | 7 |
| Kremlin Maligned | 0 |
| False Truths | 1 |
| Potemkin Russia | 2 |
| Manufactured Russophobia | 4 |
| If It’s About Russia, It’s True | 8 |
| Black-Washing Russia | 4 |
| Russia NOT for Dummies | 5 |
| Dark Lord of the Kremlin | 11 |
| Other | 4 |
And for the subtitle:
| Western Discourse on Putin’s Russia and the New Cold War | 6 |
| How The Western Media Fuels A New Cold War With Russia | 20 |
| Russia in the Press | 2 |
| Putin Derangement Syndrome and the American Press | 4 |
| How The Western Media Misrepresents Putin’s Russia | 10 |
| The Western Media’s War Against Putin’s Russia | 14 |
| Other | 1 |
Thanks for all the suggestions, and voting.
PS. While I don’t think Through Western Eyes is a bad title, unfortunately it’s kinda already occupied Eric. It’s also very similar to Russia under Western Eyes.
FTW, my favorites so far include:
Putin Derangement Syndrome
False Truths
Potemkin Russia*
If It’s About Russia, It’s True
Black-Washing Russia
Russia NOT for Dummies
Dark Lord of the Kremlin
Leading three are:
Putin Derangement Syndrome
Potemkin Russia
If It’s About Russia, It’s True
* Sounds like a strange title? explanation (Potemkin villages are a historical myth)
Very few know this about Potemkin villages. Too delicate.
Russia – on the Other Hand
My 2 cents:
Anything which includes Russophobia, etc. seems a bit wonkish to me, & likely only to appeal to a limited audience.
Putin is the focus of almost every anti-russia article, so he should probably atleast get a mention in title or sub-title.
Something like “How The Western Media Fuels A New Cold War With Russia” that captures the scale & seriousness of what is occuring, if not the mendacity & pettiness of most of the garbage produced.
HEADING: “When the truth doesn’t matter”
SUBHEADING: “How The Western Media Fuels A New Cold War With Russia”
is probably my favourite, but still feel Putin should get a mention.
You might also consider how search engines, book sites, etc. list titles, & what most people will be looking for when searching for a book about Russia, & how sites like Amazon, etc. list titles.
PS. Are you planning a chapter on western funding of dodgy oppositionist’s & the enormous variety of dubious “NGO’s” by western sources, & how that effects coverage and perceptions of Russia?
Land Destroyer has some good research on it ( http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Russia ), & I imagine Patrick Armstrong & others have done a quite a bit of background on them.
If Through Western Eyes is taken
You can alter it to “Seen through western eyes”, or Through a western prism.
Then “How The Western Media Fuels A New Cold War With Russia” is good but then you can slightly modify it toensure a better connection betwenn the two like “How the western media distorts Russia’s image and fuel a new cold war”
I really don’t understand why “[?] Western Eyes” is so popular. It reeks of academia and PoMoism, the kind of book that has one or two reviews on Amazon. 🙂
Sorry for the typos (I hate those touchscreens’ keyboards!)
Prism sounds good imo because “western eyes” would be the western public opinion, and there is no reason they’d be so russophobic in this day and age, at least not spontaneously.
So the real problem is what is between those eyes and Russia, what obscure and skew their views: that is the media, hence the “prism”.
Imo Putin shouldn’t be in the title, the book is not exclusively Putin centric, covering stuff like demography.
Yes agreed. Is this a Putin Book or is it about Russia and how a fairly nationalist government tackles long standing issues from the Tsarist and Soviet periods and the aftermath of Yeltsin’s reforms?
How about..
“Bogeyman
How The Western Media Fuels A New Cold War With Russia”?
Whatever the title, it sounds like a very interesting book!
Bogeyman is actually a really good idea. I’ll consider that, thanks.
Hmm…, what about The Kremlin Scarecrow? As is something that we’re supposed to be scared of (“Russophobia”) but have no objective reason to be?
I like the “Putin Derangement Syndrome”, but it’s just a rework of the already-done-to-death Bush Derangement Syndrome. I’d propose “Misunderstanding Putin” (maybe even “Misunderestimating Putin”, ha ha, George Bush, you loser), but that’s not even exactly what I’m trying to say. What’s a single word that describes deliberately misunderstanding?
… Can’t think of one. And that is my number one issue with PDS also.
I voted for Dark Lord of the Kremlin. I would totally read a book with that title. The subtitle is a bit more difficult, though I think How the western media fuels a new cold war with Russia is the most controversial-sounding (and therefore will hopefully get more people to read it).
Are you going to self-publish or go the traditional route?
Hi Natalie, thanks for voting.
I think I agree with that choice. For me its basically Putin Derangement Syndrome vs. Dark Lord.
I’ll see closer to the date. Once I’ve made substantial progress, I’ll send out feelers to publishers by myself and perhaps through contacts. If the response isn’t positive, then I’ll self-publish.
Hi, Anatoly:
Might I suggest a different approach? Don’t worry about the title–just get to writing the manuscript. I’ve got two books under my belt, and am now starting on a third. My experience is that any title you come-up with at the beginning you’ll end-up revising a half-dozen times as your project evolves. Perhaps you pick-up on some new thread or insight that ties your chapters together, and that gives you the idea for some wordplay or witty pun or something better that just “fits.” Plus, depending upon where your manuscript lands (academic publisher or commercial publisher vs. self-published), your editor–if s/he is worth his/her salt–will probably have some constructive contributions to make as well. For my first book, the words in the title itself were the absolute last ones written, and looking back now at the dozen or so ideas I had for the title back when I started, they all turned-out to be absolute crap by comparison.
Best of luck to you on your endeavor!