While it is interesting to examine death rates through a social/psychological/historical lens, Gessen runs into fairly predictable dead ends. Historical facts are important, however it appears that Gessen overlooks the importance of how the Russian people view their history as well as their current society. With Gaventa and Scott, we have established that as an outside observer, it is important not to assume that anyone views their situation as owe view it, regardless of how clearly we feel we’ve analyzed it. Interviewing the wrong people might also have played a role here. Clearly, interviewees who are not of the appropriate age or who are not among those reporting to experience exceptionally low “hope levels” would not be able to provide accurate insight into the social causes, as they would not be operating with the same private transcript. Finally, the psychological correlation that Gessen proposes seems somewhat misplaced. A correlation based on odd statistics seems to be the least direct way to approach the problem. Not only is a correlation untrustworthy, but statistics, especially concerning something like “hope,” are also a questionable approach to a phenomenon that is clearly complex, especially when the statistics represent a large variety of people. Furthermore, this seems impersonal in that it doesn’t deal with the individuals’ conceptions of hope. Overall, it seems as though Gessen would do well to look to anthropology’s more immersive approach. While she seems to attempt a Middle-Range approach, she misses the importance of depth in her three approaches. Rather than search further socially, it seems as though Gessen would rather search for the answer elsewhere. While it is essential to conducting research that one is searching for something, it seems that the lesson here is that searching means nothing without adequate depth and constant re-evaluation.