Based on four years of reporting; extensive travels with President Zelensky to
the front; and dozens of interviews with him, his wife, his friends and enemies,
his advisers, ministers and military commanders, The Showman tells an intimate
and eye-opening story of the President’s evolution from a slapstick actor to a
symbol of resilience, revealing how he managed to rally the world’s democracies
behind his cause. Clear-eyed about the President’s early failures as a peacemaker and his
willingness to silence political dissent, the book offers a complex picture of a
man struggling to break what he sees as a historical cycle of oppression that
began generations before he was born. Even as the war drags on, Zelensky lays
out his vision for its future course and, through his actions, demonstrates his
strategy for countering the Russians and keeping the West on his side. The
result is a riveting, up-close picture of the invasion as experienced by its
number one target and improbable hero. The Showman, as a work of eyewitness journalism, provides an essential
perspective on the war defining our age. As a study in leadership and human
resolve, its appeal is timeless and universal.