Gessen’s piece begins with what feels like random anecdotal evidence for a rising mortality rate. She anthropological and sociological evidence in the first few pages as an introduction to her claim that more and more Russians are dying. Gessen jumps from the “unstructured interviews” conducted by Michelle Parsons to broad historical trends to economic conditions, all as possibilities for the cause of what seems like increased death rates in Russian. Her use of a great number and variety of possible causes does not make up for the fact that they are quite possibly unrelated. In other words, attempting to link together cultural, institutional, and historical arguments is not an effective method to summarize a specific trend that occurred over a vast number of years, specifically in the case of the Russian deaths. This becomes obvious in the latter half of the book review, when Gessen provides empirical facts about the deaths that occurred during times of famine, war, and emigration. While these periods of time had distinct, determinable causes of deaths, others did not. But this is not to say that they can or should only be explained by sociological or circumstantial evidence. Number of deaths and mortality rates are undeniably quantifiable statistics. We have records that keep track of the number of deaths, people’s age and cause of death, etc. Yes, Russia certainly has a distinct history and culture that has led its population to certain unique points of despair or hope that may or may not link to death rates; however, this is not to say that we should turn to sociological methods only as an explanation for scientific occurrences.