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Gorbachev Paperback – January 1, 2018
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Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
The definitive biography of the transformational Russian leader by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Khrushchev .
"Essential reading for the twenty-first [century]." ―Radhika Jones, The New York Times Book Review When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, the USSR. was one of the world’s two superpowers. By 1989, his liberal policies of perestroika and glasnost had permanently transformed Soviet Communism, and had made enemies of radicals on the right and left. By 1990 he, more than anyone else, had ended the Cold War, and in 1991, after barely escaping from a coup attempt, he unintentionally presided over the collapse of the Soviet Union he had tried to save. In the first comprehensive biography of the final Soviet leader, William Taubman shows how a peasant boy became the Soviet system’s gravedigger, how he clambered to the top of a system designed to keep people like him down, how he found common ground with America’s arch-conservative president Ronald Reagan, and how he permitted the USSR and its East European empire to break apart without using force to preserve them. Throughout, Taubman portrays the many sides of Gorbachev’s unique character that, by Gorbachev’s own admission, make him "difficult to understand." Was he in fact a truly great leader, or was he brought low in the end by his own shortcomings, as well as by the unyielding forces he faced? Drawing on interviews with Gorbachev himself, transcripts and documents from the Russian archives, and interviews with Kremlin aides and adversaries, as well as foreign leaders, Taubman’s intensely personal portrait extends to Gorbachev’s remarkable marriage to a woman he deeply loved, and to the family that they raised together. Nuanced and poignant, yet unsparing and honest, this sweeping account has all the amplitude of a great Russian novel. 90 illustrations
- Print length852 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSIMON & SCHUSTER
- Publication dateJanuary 1, 2018
- Dimensions5.12 x 1.73 x 7.8 inches
- ISBN-109781471147951
- ISBN-13978-1471147951
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Product details
- ASIN : 1471147959
- Publisher : SIMON & SCHUSTER (January 1, 2018)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 852 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9781471147951
- ISBN-13 : 978-1471147951
- Item Weight : 1.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.12 x 1.73 x 7.8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,076,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,270 in Political Leader Biographies
- #7,983 in Military Leader Biographies
- #16,494 in Historical Biographies (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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A great book about a great man.
Mr. Taubman clearly explains why the dual shock therapy of “Glasnost” and “Perestroika” that Mr. Gorbachev administered to the former Soviet Union led to 1) the temporary democratization of what is today authoritarian, anti-Western Russia, 2) the economic ruin of many of his fellow citizens, 3) the end of the cold war, 4) the reunification of Germany, and 5) the mostly peaceful disintegration of the former Soviet Union. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Gorbachev has been widely lionized in the West while widely despised in Russia.
Furthermore, Mr. Taubman shows with much dexterity the lack of long-term vision of Western leaders, especially the American political elite in the late 1980s and 1990s. The U.S. political leadership displayed the same short-termism that Wall Street has displayed to this day in offering negligible economic assistance to both the fast-declining Soviet Union and Russia. Winston Churchill wrote on that subject: “The politician thinks about the next election – the statesman thinks about the next generation.” Like well-known Western invaders, these smug Western political leaders have grossly underestimated the resilience of the Russian people. Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union, is again a formidable world power despite its well-known weaknesses.
In summary, Mr. Taubman makes a compelling argumentation that Mr. Gorbachev was exceptional as both a Soviet ruler and world statesman.
print portrait of Mr Gorbachev on the wall out of respect for his letting the breath of freedom into
the then Soviet Union. Indeed, the Wall did fall and no matter the current events, Russia will eventually join the western world in my opinion
largely because of this 20th Century Giant. The book is superb & covers his life nicely as well as his brilliant wife & quietly powerful wife-partner.
He was life-long Russian Nationalist & Patriate.
Dr. William H. Brandon, MD,FACP
Initial BS Degree in Political Science
University of Tennessee Knoxville
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Reviewed in Mexico on August 16, 2021
Gorbachev: His Life and Times (1/9/22-13/9/22)
This is the second mammoth biography by this author of a Soviet leader I have read, after his even bigger tome on Khrushchev in 2007. Gorbachev of course has a massive claim to be one of the most significant statesmen of the second half of the 20th century, and is widely regarded as such certainly in western Europe and north America, though largely not in his own country. He was "the only politician in Russian history who, having full power in his hands, voluntarily opted to limit it and even risk losing it, in the name of principled moral values". This would in most countries endear him to many people, though not in Russia, which has never been able to develop a democratic tradition, where there is a many centuries long tradition of a preference for authoritarian rule by one man (or very occasionally woman, in the 18th century anyway).
This exhaustively well researched biography traces his early life in a peasant farming family in southern Russia and the formative influences of his father and maternal grandfather in particular, his going to Moscow University to study law, meeting his wife Raisa, and his early climbing up the party hierarchy, to reach the Politburo in 1979-80 before the age of 50, by some distance its younger member. Most of this long book understandably deals with the six years of his leadership from 1985-91, first as general secretary of the Communist Party and latterly also as President of the USSR, when the country started to break up under the influence of the numerous internal and external pressures, the economy declining further and further, even while his democratic reforms (glasnost) gave his fellow countrymen a freedom they had literally never experienced before and which many of them, to some extent, did not know how to use and did not thank him for.
Only the last of 19 chapters deals with the quarter century (and more) of his post Soviet life, his international efforts to promote his ideals, and the tragic relatively early death of his beloved Raisa from leukemia in 1999. The author concludes that "despite his flaws and his failure to achieve all his noble aims, he was a tragic hero who deserves our understanding and admiration", and I agree with this conclusion as, I suspect, would most readers. His recent death, which prompted my reading of this book, will, I feel, compel others to evaluate his life's work in a largely positive way.
My only minor criticism of this book would be the extensive quotes from so many observers, so that the descriptions of some meetings/summits feel almost as long in the reading as the events themselves.








