Yeltsin: A Life [Hardcover]

Timothy J. Colton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2008

Even after his death in April 2007, Boris Yeltsin remains the most controversial figure in recent Russian history. Although Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the decline of the Communist party and the withdrawal of Soviet control over eastern Europe, it was Yeltsin-Russia’s first elected president-who buried the Soviet Union itself. Upon taking office, Yeltsin quickly embarked on a sweeping makeover of newly democratic Russia, beginning with a program of excruciatingly painful market reforms that earned him wide acclaim in the West and deep recrimination from many Russian citizens. In this, the first biography of Yeltsin’s entire life, Soviet scholar Timothy Colton traces Yeltsin’s development from a peasant boy in the Urals to a Communist party apparatchik, and then ultimately to a nemesis of the Soviet order. Based on unprecedented interviews with Yeltsin himself as well as scores of other Soviet officials, journalists, and businessmen, Colton explains how and why Yeltsin broke with single-party rule and launched his drive to replace it with democracy. Yeltsin’s colossal attempt to bring democracy to Russia remains one of the great, unfinished stories of our time. As anti-Western policies and rhetoric resurface in Putin’s increasingly bellicose Russia, Yeltsin offers essential insights into the past, present, and future of this vast and troubled nation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When President Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) left office in 1999, he was unpopular in Russia and viewed as a buffoon by some internationally, but it would be a mistake to underestimate his influence on contemporary Russia, Colton, director of Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, argues in this balanced yet sympathetic portrayal. Unpretentious, patriotic and with a strong work ethic, says Colton, the provincial young man, whose father had spent time in the gulag, rose up the Soviet bureaucratic ladder. But apparently, in 1989, on a trip to the U.S., Yeltsin saw the benefits of capitalism and foresaw the pending Soviet collapse; Yeltsin's popularity among ordinary Russians served him well when he made his famous 1991 tank speech during the anti-Gorbachev coup. Colton agrees with most pundits that overwork and poor lifestyle habits eventually caught up with Yeltsin, forcing him to leave office in 1999; he named Vladimir Putin his successor. While praising Yeltsin's ability to keep Russia together and sow the seeds for later economic success, Colton criticizes his failure to establish constitutional safeguards that might have prevented Russia's recent turn toward authoritarianism. Colton's book offers a finely detailed portrait of a key international leader. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

To his admirers and detractors, Yeltsin remains an enigma: the heroic figure who majestically faced down tanks, seemingly single-handedly, to prevent the coup against Gorbachev’s reforming movement but also the national embarrassment who appeared publicly in an alcoholic haze and presided over a brutal and corrupt transition from totalitarianism to a supposedly democratic society. Colton, a scholar of Russian studies at Harvard, has written the first comprehensive biography of Yeltsin. Aided by access to Yeltsin himself as well as to prominent Russian officials and close associates, Colton seeks insight by examining Yeltsin’s family background, childhood, and young manhood. His family, moderately prosperous before the revolution, was severely victimized by Stalin, yet Yeltsin, who stood out as a youth as a highly energetic leader, willingly became part of the system he grew to detest, as an apparently loyal apparatchik. But as Colton illustrates, he always harbored serious doubts about dogmatic Marxism; these doubts, combined with a naturally rebellious spirit, led him to play his part in the dismantling of the Soviet Union. An important work. --Jay Freeman

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 16 and up
  
• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (April 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 046501271X
• ISBN-13: 978-0465012718
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,248,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best study yet of Yeltsin, January 18, 2011

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PlanktonEater (George's Bank) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Yeltsin: A Life (Hardcover)

I'm a biography nut and also study the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. Russia and the Soviet Union, as subjects, have a tendency to attract a lot of bad writing. Headline seekers, former military analysts who can't write, former officials trying to rescue their reputations and the endless line-up of people with axes to grind ensure that there is more chaff than wheat in this field. Colton's book is a scholarly, yet readable take on Yeltsin's life. Few leaders have been harder to de-cipher for me than Yeltsin and this book is as good a try as is out there and is possible at this time. It's a must for people wanting a better take on the man that defined Russia's '90s.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging and informative; the definitive Yeltsin book., January 13, 2009

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John E. Drury "jedrury" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Yeltsin: A Life (Hardcover)

The name "Gorbachev" may pop to mind when thinking of the fall of communism, the truth is Boris Yeltsin was the real hero who finished off its carcass with conviction and drama and dragged the country along on the road to its form of democratic modernity. Professor Timothy Colton's book is a thorough, highly readable biography of Boris from the Urals, the man of real significant consequence of the 20th century. Focusing on Yeltsin the person, the book does not suffer from the Russophobia as do so many books on Russia, its politics and governance. As an accomplished Russian speaking historian; Colton is knowledgeable and respectful of Russian culture and its political turnaround from the late 1980s onward. Text, sources, in person interviews with all the players, and 130 pages of copious, informative footnotes show that the book's sources are deep and authorative, not the usual newspaper stories filtered through American press reports. Colton, a Harvard professor of Russian history, is not some journalist historian. The book's high points center on his humble upbringing, Yeltsin's canny climb to power from the town of Sverdlovsk, his emergence on the political scene in the later 90s, the machinations of his ouster of Gorbachev, his struggles with the Duma and his historic and surprising selection of Vladimir Putin as prime minister and president in 1999.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb biography, July 5, 2008

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Adam Clymer (Washington DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Yeltsin: A Life (Hardcover)

Colton has provided a smart, well-researched and well-written account of a pivotal figure in Russian history.