Thane Gustafson’s The Bridge – Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe provides a timely chronicle of European–Russian natural gas relations. It explicates a history of the fuel that provides nearly a quarter of European energy supply and generates a substantial portion of the Kremlin’s revenue; however, the European Union’s (EU) energy transition poses a threat to its future. Gustafson is arguably one of the best people to undertake this analysis as he has spent the majority of his career exploring the Soviet and Russian energy sector – writing classics of the field, such as Crisis amid Plenty: The Politics of Soviet Energy under Brezhnev and Gorbachev and Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for Oil and Power in Russia. Gustafson complements his strong suit of Soviet and Russian energy politics in The Bridge with the European side of the story, helping readers better understand how the gas bridge is constructed and the difficulties its dismantling may entail.
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