Jack, Andrew (John) 1967-

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JACK, Andrew (John) 1967-

PERSONAL:

Born April 12, 1967, in Weybridge, Surrey, England; son of Alan and Jean (Bradbury) Jack. Education: Cambridge University, M.A., 1988.

ADDRESSES:

Home—11 Lincoln Pl. Apt. 3R, Brooklyn, NY 11217-3582. Office—Financial Times, 14 E. 60th St., New York, NY 10022-1006. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Oxford University Press, 2001 Evans Rd., Cary, NC 27513.

CAREER:

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, Choate Memorial fellow, 1988-89; New York City Office of Business Development, New York, NY, employment manager, 1989-90; Financial Times, New York and London correspondent, 1990-94, Paris correspondent, 1994-98, Moscow correspondent then chief of Moscow bureau, 1998—.

MEMBER:

Royal Geographical Society, Royal Society of Asian Affairs.

AWARDS, HONORS:

British Press AwardNew York City Government urban fellow, 1989-90.

WRITINGS:

Life at the Top, Spiro Press (London, England), 1989.

The French Exception: France—Still So Special?, Profile Books (London, England), 1999.

Inside Putin's Russia: Can There Be Reform without Democracy?, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Andrew Jack is a journalist and author who has worked as a correspondent for the Financial Times in New York, London, Paris, and Moscow. In his 1999 book, The French Exception: France—Still So Special?, Jack relied largely on his experience working in Paris to write about how the French feel and act differently from Americans and most of the rest of the Western world. Jack delves into the French government, economy, and overall society and concludes that several characteristics determined France's development, including an obsession with equality above even liberty, the dominance of privileged elites over the principle of equality, and a cult of intellectualism that emphasizes thought over action. In a review for the Literary Review, Susannah Herbert commented that the book starts with "some testy Anglo-Saxon generalizations," but noted that Jack is "too intellectually curious to froth for long." Herbert also wrote that the author's "great strength is his willingness to test automatic assumptions and first impressions against reality." Writing for the Culture Kiosque Web site, John Sidgwick commented that "Jack has achieved the tour de force of producing one of the most useful and pertinent books on the country that has appeared in recent years."

Jack's interests turned to Russia after he was stationed in Moscow for the Financial Times in 1998. His time in that region led to Inside Putin's Russia: Can ThereBe Reform without Democracy?, which was published in 2004. In this book, Jack discusses the political leadership of Russian president Vladimir Putin and his meteoric rise from a KGB official working in lowly government jobs to his position as the most powerful man in a new Russia. Jack outlines how Putin surprised many observers by leading Russia into a period of strong economic growth and significant restructuring. Putin, according to Jack, also led Russia to advance in international prestige and the leader has experienced extraordinarily high popularity among the Russian people. In the process of discussing Putin's leadership, Jack delves into Putin's thinking and style as he evaluates the Russian leader's overall performance and effectiveness as the country's president, including his handling of the Chechnya crisis.

Writing in Newsweek International, Anna Kuchment commented that "the real highlights" of Inside Putin's Russia "are the passages where Jack describes how Moscow has changed since he first arrived in 1998. Back then, amid acute product shortages, a head of lettuce was tough to find. Now upscale supermarkets and marble-clad shopping centers line the boulevards." A Contemporary Review contributor commented, "By combining an analysis of high politics with a close examination of daily life this book gives us one of the best studies of contemporary Russian life in all its bewildering immensity." Rachel Polonsky, writing in the New Statesman, called the effort a "lucid, nuanced and stimulating investigation of Putin's first term."