The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union - Hardcover

Plokhy, Serhii

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 178074529X ISBN 13: 9781780745299

Publisher: Oneworld Publications, 2014

Synopsis

On Christmas Day 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union. By the next day the USSR was officially no more and the USA had emerged as the world's sole superpower. Award-winning historian Serhii Plohky gives us a vivid account of the preceding five months. Honing in on this previously disregarded but crucial period and based on new sources and exclusive interviews with the presidents of the two superpowers, Plokhy shatters the established myths of 1991 and boldly argues that the US actually wanted to preserve the Soviet Union and Gorbachev in power. With its spellbinding narrative and strikingly fresh perspective, this is the essential account of one of the most important turning points in world history.

About this title

Review:

'Serhii Plokhy's dramatic account of the high politics behind the collapse of the Soviet Union could not be more timely... The Last Empire is a brilliant work of political narrative: vivid, original, urgent, and above all, wise.' --Rachel Polonsky, author of Molotov's Magic Lantern: Travels in Russian History

'Serhii Plokhy's fine book combines a colourful, fast-paced narrative with trenchant analysis of key players in the Soviet collapse... By far our best account yet of the death spiral of the USSR.' --William Taubman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era

'At last, a definitive account of the breakup of the USSR... This book usefully eviscerates some of the remaining mythology about the end of the Cold War, and is an indispensable guide to the tensions and rivalries of the present.' --Anne Applebaum Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History

Book Description:

"A stirring account of an extraordinary moment."-Wall Street Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 178074529X
• ISBN 13: 9781780745299
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 512