"This is a welcome and important contribution to the burgeoning literature on how physical geography contributes to economic development or retrogression. . . .This book adds important new insights into the continuing debates over Russia's economic past and future."
—Jeffrey Sachs, Earth Institute, Columbia University, author of Economic Development and the Division of Labor

"The disastrous impact of Soviet planning on the geography of the Russian economy is a hitherto neglected but vital subject. Those still wondering why market reforms have achieved only limited success in Russia since the collapse of Communism cannot afford to overlook this timely and original book."
—Niall Ferguson, Jesus College, Oxford University, author of Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Power

"The Siberian Curse is a highly original as well as persuasive account of recurrent Russian economic problems due to excessive territors which results in misallocation of human and material resources. Russia's current government would do well to heed the admonitions of the book's American authors."
—Richard Pipes, Professor of History, Emeritus, Harvard University, author of Communism: A History

"The book's conclusion about the ominous future of Siberia casts an important new perspective on Russia's geopolitical dilemmas."
—Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Adviser, author of The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives

"If they mention geography, distance, and climate at all, most books on Russia make a polite bow to these factors in the introduction and then ignore them in the rest of the text. This book by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy puts geography right where it belongs, in the middle of the picture. Had more academic economists in the 1990s been willing to temper fashionable theorising by taking the occasional look at a map, Russia's unique problems in coping with 'transition' might have been appreciated better."
—Dominic Lieven, London School of Economics, author of Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals

"The Siberian Curse," by Victoria Levin, Demokratizatsiya, Winter 2005

"Russia: Unmanifest Destiny," by Robert Cottrell, The New York Review of Books, October 7, 2004

"Unfreezing Russia's Economy," by Cristina Chuen, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, May/June 2004

"The Siberian Curse," by Harley Balzer, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2004

"Everyone knows that Russia is big and cold. Hill and Gaddy argue that Russians, during the Soviet era especially, have treated the first condition as an advantage and the second as surmountable—and that in both respects, they are deeply mistaken."
—Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2004

"The authors make their case vigorously, but they recognize that the bureaucratic barriers to leaving remain severe, and that national myths are potent."
—The New Yorker, March 8, 2004

"Ms. Hill and Mr. Gaddy argue that Russia's current policies have also hindered the natural redistribution of workers, including restrictions on migration and continued subsidies for northerners. In their view, a fundamental change is needed in Russia's attitude toward the region."
—Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times, January 28, 2004

"Russia is the wrong shape. Too big, far too long, flat for much of the way and accursedly mountainous in between; but above all, as Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy show in this fascinating study, the wrong shape economically. . ."
—The Economist, November 8, 2003

"The Land That Time Forgot," by Andrew Kuchins, Survival, Summer 2004

"Siberia: After the Cold Rush," by Sarah Hurst, Transitions Online, July 21, 2004

"The Siberian Curse," by Pavel Baev, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 41, #4, p. 519, 2004

"The Siberian Curse," by Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten, November 9, 2003

"Cost of Cold" (Цена хoлoда), Interview with Fiona Hill (in Russian), Ekspert #10 (413), March 15, 2004.

"How Much Does Siberia Cost?" (Чегo стoит Сибирь?) by Sergey Lunev (in Russian), International Trends Journal, January-April 2004

"Hill and Gaddy take a different tack from current policy debate, which generally focuses on improving transport and communications connections between Siberian cities and European Russia. In their view, building infrastructure at enormous cost to connect cities that are simply too cold and too far apart does not make economic sense. In order to truly connect its economy, Russia must shrink. To do that, it must ensure that its citizens have the freedom (enshrined in the Constitution but not available in practice) to leave Siberia for warmer, more productive areas of Russia, and that they take advantage of that freedom."
—Christine Evans, "If you Can't Stand the Cold, Get Out of Siberia," The Moscow Times, January 9, 2004

"The authors' diagnosis is sound and their prognosis grim. But, assert Hill and Gaddy, recovery is possible. Russia must downsize its cold cities and encourage a mass migration of the population westward, to concentrate the country's workforce and brainpower in European Russia."
—Russian Life, Volume 47, No. 1, January/February 2004

"The Siberian Curse," by Hiroki Nogami (Japan), The Developing Economies, September 2004

"Siberia: Russia's Economic Heartland and Daunting Dilemma," by Fiona Hill, Current History, October 2004

"Siberia - Communist Megalomania?," by Fiona Hill, The Globalist, February 2, 2004 (Part One of Two)

"Russia - Coming in from the Cold?," by Fiona Hill, The Globalist, February 23, 2004 (Part Two of Two)

"Siberian Curse: You Think This Was Cold? Try Yakutsk," by Fiona Hill, The International Herald Tribune, January 30, 2004

"Red Bricks of Past Hobble Russia's Economic Future," by Fiona Hill, Orlando Sentinel, November 17, 2003

"Doubling GDP and the Illusion of Growth," by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, The Moscow Times, November 12, 2003

"A Land Too Cold for a Free Market in Energy," by Fiona Hill, Financial Times, October 17, 2003

"The Siberian Curse: Does Russia's Geography Doom its Chances for Market Reform?" by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, The Brookings Review, Fall 2003

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