Customer Reviews

Yeltsin: A Life

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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.

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.

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

Biographies of Soviet or Russian leaders, or any other famous characters from Russia are often disappointing. Too often, historians don't know how to write, overpraise their subjects and most striking, don't use any new material. Unfortunately, the latest Sakharov biography is one of them. Colton sure knows how to write, without being vulgar (à la Figes), his English is beautiful and at the same time very precise. He knows how to judge such a complex personality, uses lively conversations from the Politburo to create an atmosphere. He uses original material from the Yekaterinburg archive, so he made the effort to go to Russia (actually this book began as a project before the death of Yeltsin). Not to mention the fact that, at last, someone dares to say Gorbachev was not the guy he potrayed to be in his memoirs. A rebuttal to Russian hypocrits who spit on someone who brought them liberty, a fresh start and who tried his best to save Russia from a communist reaction, not to mention civil war. A book to buy, and to keep. Highly recommended. Bravo !