Anyone who thinks “western values” are an arrogant fiction created to perpetuate the dominance of market democracies or whitewash their crimes should read A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, a heartbreakingly poignant novel about the wars in Chechnya.  Based on the reporting of amazingly brave — and murdered — Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and the memoir … Continue reading A Constellation of Vital Phenomena: A Literary Window into Russia’s Chechnya Wars