During the row over weaponry that thundered on during the G8 summit at Heiligendamm - drowning out the distant shouts of protesters and the platitudinous murmuring of soon-to-be-ex-world leaders about the need (again) to tackle climate change - Russia's president took a leaf out of his own book. The book is called Judo: History, Theory, Practice, and Vladimir Putin wrote it with a couple of buddies during the euphoric period that followed his re-election in 2004 with 71 per cent of the vote. It has since been published in English by North Atlantic Books - no relation to the treaty organisation - and is frustratingly hard to get hold of. This may be deliberate. Not only does it lay bare the deep strategic thinking behind Putin's remarkable art of martial diplomacy - teaching a lesson from which his sparring partners Bush and Blair could learn a thing or two - but it is also a brilliant judo manual.

LRB 21 June 2007 | PDF Download