Putin's War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America's Absence by Anna Borshchevskaya, and: Russia Rising: Putin's Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa ed. by Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu and Stanislav Secrieru (review)

offers insights into constitution-formation and collateral issues not readily observable through alternative paradigms. All of which enriches the discipline of comparative law. Omitted from their study and virtually all others in this field is a consideration of the twenty-one-volume verbatim transcript of the 1993 Russian constitutional convention that prepared the draft text and the sixvolume (in ten) Shakhrai collection of Russian constitutional documentation circulated in connection with the drafting process. There is still much to be learned about recent post-Soviet constitution-making that is well within our memory.