List Price: $24.95 Details

Save: $6.03 (24%)

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime & FREE Returns

FREE delivery: Friday, Sep 3 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon. Details

Fastest delivery: Saturday, Aug 28

In Stock.
As an alternative, the Kindle eBook is available now and can be read on any device with the free Kindle app.

$$18.92 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Ships from	Amazon.com
Sold by	Amazon.com

Details

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Return policy: Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery: Friday, Sep 3 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon. Details

Fastest delivery: Aug 28 - 30

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by DebtBGoneBOOKS

Fulfilled by Amazon

Share <Embed>

Other Sellers on Amazon

$2.83
+ $14.99 shipping

Sold by: CreativeBooks99

$2.89
+ $14.99 shipping

Sold by: Fine_Books_Store

$14.48
+ $4.18 shipping

Sold by: Totem Books | Vinyl | Cafe

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Author

William Taubman

Khrushchev: The Man and His Era Paperback – April 17, 2004

by William Taubman (Author)

209 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$14.72

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$29.50

$24.98

$3.23

Paperback

"Please retry"

$18.92

$2.83

$1.99

Audio, Cassette, Unabridged, Audiobook

"Please retry"

$65.00

—

$65.00

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

The definitive biography of the mercurial Soviet leader who succeeded and denounced Stalin. Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most complex and important political figures of the twentieth century. Ruler of the Soviet Union during the first decade after Stalin's death, Khrushchev left a contradictory stamp on his country and on the world. His life and career mirror the Soviet experience: revolution, civil war, famine, collectivization, industrialization, terror, world war, cold war, Stalinism, post-Stalinism. Complicit in terrible Stalinist crimes, Khrushchev nevertheless retained his humanity: his daring attempt to reform communism prepared the ground for its eventual collapse; and his awkward efforts to ease the cold war triggered its most dangerous crises.

This is the first comprehensive biography of Khrushchev and the first of any Soviet leader to reflect the full range of sources that have become available since the USSR collapsed. Combining a page-turning historical narrative with penetrating political and psychological analysis, this book brims with the life and excitement of a man whose story personified his era.

Print length

896 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

April 17, 2004
Dimensions

6.1 x 1.6 x 9.2 inches
ISBN-10

0393324842
ISBN-13

978-0393324846
See all details

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Sergei Khrushchev
16
Paperback
8 offers from $38.93
Ritchie Robertson
163
Hardcover
34 offers from $26.24
William Taubman
190
Hardcover
75 offers from $4.65
Walter Isaacson
217
Paperback
54 offers from $6.98
Stephen Kotkin
355
Hardcover
61 offers from $10.64
Anne Applebaum
842
Paperback
89 offers from $7.01

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

William Taubman
190
Hardcover
75 offers from $4.65
Simon Sebag Montefiore
890
Paperback
77 offers from $4.00
Odd Arne Westad
259
Paperback
51 offers from $8.69
Jean Edward Smith
744
Paperback
77 offers from $7.58
Robert A. Caro
776
Paperback
105 offers from $4.73
Barack Obama
114,113
Hardcover
239 offers from $4.72

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Thanks to Taubman, one of the most important figures of the 20th century finally has the biography he deserves."
― Strobe Talbott, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Masterful and monumental...one should salute its author for a wonderful achievement."
― Robert G. Kaiser, Washington Post

"A portrait unlikely to be surpassed any time soon in either richness or complexity....shines with mastery and authority."
― Leon Aron, New York Times Book Review

"The book is a gift, as fascinating as it is important."
― Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs

About the Author

William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Amherst College. His biography, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Start reading Khrushchev: The Man and His Era on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Compra tu Kindle aquí, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (April 17, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 896 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393324842
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393324846
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.52 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 1.6 x 9.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #285,848 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #205 in Historical Russia Biographies
- #683 in Russian History (Books)
- #977 in US Presidents

Customer Reviews:
209 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		74%
4 star		15%
3 star		7%
2 star		3%
1 star		1%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

robert clarke

Best Bio of a Soviet Leader -- Must-Read If You Think Socialism Is The Answer

Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2019

Verified Purchase

This will rank as one of the best, if not the best, bios of Soviet Leaders/Personalities. Taubman puts a human face on an inhuman system and personalizes Khrushchev in a way that rings true -- NSK is clearly portrayed in his many strengths and equally many weaknesses. Taubman chronicles KSK's ascent from a true believer, frightened toady of Stalin, thru his wartime experiences, to an erratic leader of the USSR who despises the Soviet military yet recklessly threatens the West with nuclear war, to his final realization that socialism/communism is a failed system. "I am up to my elbows in blood," KSK is quoted as saying. In penatance, he forced the first moves towards exposing and reversing the horrible excesses of Stalin. Especially poignant are the last passages in which NSK finally comes to the realization that his beloved communism ideal can't be reformed by tinkering, but the very foundations of that system is the source of its failures and cruelties. This should be read by any American who is intrigued by the false allure of socialism and the illusive"fairness" which it promises...

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

dac

Surprising

Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2020

Verified Purchase

I am not a book reviewer, so I can't give you what a book reviewer would say, for example, in a newspaper column. The book was very well written and researched and was, I think, as objective a one as can reasonably be. It is drawn from many sources, and has a very good and extensive biography. On a personal level, I do not like Khrushchev and never have. But after reading the book, I came to at least respect him. He was a very complex man. He was completely indefatigable and truly believed in what he tried to achieve. Unfortunately, he was dead wrong and continued to delude himself about the failed system around him. Try as he may, and he did try hard, he could not get a completely unworkable, discombobulated, humanly unrealistic system to work. However, after Stalin's death, he was the first to clearly and sincerely denounce Stalin and denounce the complicity of the others in the ultra higher ups around Stalin, e.g., Kaganovich, Molotov, Bulganin, Beria, Voroshilov, etc. This included himself, though he he rather vaguely brushed over this point.
He seems to have been a strong family man, though he traveled constantly, working always. and was frequently away from home. He did a very great deal of entertaining, and on a personal level seemed generous and most gregarious. He repeatedly invited people to his dacha to spend a night or two; some of this was political, some was not. .
On another note, one can scarcely fail to note a definite feeling of inferiority, always trying to push him self up. Paradoxically, he often took pride in his impoverished up bringing. Much of his thinking seems reactionary to his past.
I recommend this book to anyone. Don't let the number of pages scare you off. There is a big chunk of bibliography with notes on the bibliography itself at the end. This book is compelling and especially so when seeing past history from the other side; for example, the Cuban missile crises. From about the middle on, it's hard to put this book down.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

M. A. Seifter

Khrushchev: the beginning of the end for Soviet Communism

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2020

Verified Purchase

This great biography of Nikita Khrushchev stands as the way the life-story of an historic figure should be written. William Taubman has achieved a memorable feat, in producing a needfully long (791 pages with footnotes), yet compulsively readable narrative, and psychological analysis, of this still much-debated Soviet leader. Khrushchev came from the social nothingness of a Ukrainian peasant childhood, but he relentlessly strove to improve his fortunes in the world and, like so many others at the time and place of humble estate, devoted himself with ferocious singlemindedness to the success of the Bolshevik/Communist Party after 1917. Yet, he was never really at home in this increasingly savage world, and having somehow survived Stalin, he ruled as top Party leader for only 8 years before being deposed in 1964, like so many others before him, by associates and subordinates who had crawled before his often arbitrary will. This bio is a study of the mechanics of Soviet power, certainly, and of how outsiders like Khrushchev "made it" into the highest offices of State, crawled before, yet somehow survived Stalin's diabolic purges, and finally became insiders. Yet Taubman presents, again, a quite readable psychological "case study" of a Soviet leader's sustained lack of faith in himself, the content and cost of his collusion with Stalin's executioners in the 1930s and following World War II (in the course of which he "found himself" anew), and how a top Soviet figure remained more than a cipher in the System, and maintained his subjective, and even humane, individuality. In all, an excellent book, well worth purchase and study today.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Henry Price (Hard Fried History)

Great Overview

Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2020

Verified Purchase

Important work, Taubman does a great job of detailing Khrushchev's life and does so succinctly, which is no small feat given that every decade Khrushchev lived through is its own PhD. I also liked his brief mentioning of Khrushchev's family life at the end of each chapter, the info he provided on Khrushchev's early life in particular (absent from other books) and his in-depth outline of how Khrushchev orchestrated the coup against Malenkov and Beria.

He also talks more about some aspects of Khrushchev's domestic policies (good and bad), such as his efforts to improve the Soviet standard of living, his censorship of prominent artists and his troop cuts. All-in-all its a detailed a well-balance biography. Anyone writing a biography or even a scholastic work on Khrushchev is standing on the shoulders of this giant. Read for an episode of my podcast, Hard Fried History.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Mr. Martin F. Peers

A well researched biography

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 19, 2013

Verified Purchase

This is a very good biography of Khrushchev, with some very insightful passages, especially about the years dealing with the Russian leader's rise to power. The author also provides some telling opinions about Khrushchev's rivals, such as Brezhnev, and gives us detailed background information to important world events like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Moreover, from the point of view of the meticulous nature of the research carried out for it, this book is also very useful for those who wish to study the history of the USSR in some detail.

My only criticisms of the narrative provided concern the pro-American stance taken by it about episodes like the Cuban missile crisis and the fact that - in its later stages - the author writes the book paying too much regard to the knowledge that Khrushchev was to fall from power in 1964. While accepting William Taubman's comments about the weaknesses of Khrushchev's educational background in relation to his needs as a world leader, I believe that he fails to give the Russian ample credit for what he did achieve, especially in 1962-3. The placing of missiles on Cuba was very risky for world peace but it did ensure that the USA has never tried to invade the island since. It also led to the removal of American missiles from Turkey, the establishment of a Hot Line between the two world leaders and a Test Ban treaty, all in 1963. Moreover,It was surely not unconnected that the military establishments of the two super-powers resented the attempts by the two leaders to establish détente a full ten years before it was achieved and the fact that both of them had been removed from power by the end of 1964.Finally, in relation to domestic policy, while the author does show the reader that Gorbachev saw Khrushchev's policy of cuts in military expenditure as a way of restructuring the Soviet economy through what he called perestroika, he appears to present Khrushchev's earlier attempt at this as both amateurish and doomed to failure.

Overall, however, the book is extremely well researched. It also provides a meaningful look at the basic weaknesses of the Soviet system and why it could not really survive. Finally, the author shows us that Khrushchev's naïve view of agriculture, his innate Stalinist conservatism in economic and cultural policy and his reliance on autocratic methods to stay in power all led, in the end, to his removal from power.

3 people found this helpful

Greg S

Excellent, objective and thorough...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 26, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book is worth all the plaudits, as Taubman has covered a vast time period with great attention to detail. Having read countless books on pre-Khrushchev Russian history (right through from the revolution to Stalin's death), it was refreshing to read the 1930s/40s history from another perspective within the First Circle. I found it summarised the issues and personalities of that era well without over-simplifying, before understandably dedicating the bulk of the writing to the period after Stalin's death.

Much of the narrative from 1953-55 along with Khrushchev's time at the top was enlightening as the detail of many events was unfamiliar to me. The accounts from both Russian and American (and Castro's) perspectives of events like the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis were objective and intriguing at the very least, and are written in a way that retains the reader's interest to the end. The sources of information are hugely varied and the research behind each appears to be thorough. Appropriately large passages are dedicated to the Secret Speech and other relevant political situations such as the development of the Sino-Chinese relationship, while throughout the book many of the anecdotal pieces make many of Khrushchev's encounters extremely amusing once we come to undertand the man himself.

Khrushchev is an extremely unique character in 20th century history, and I think this book demonstrates that despite his genuine attempt to de-Stalinise the worst parts of Soviet life, he was well out of his depth intellectually when it came to international relations or truly grasping political ideology (whether Lenin-Marxism or western capitalism). His personality flaws dug his own political grave, but not before a decade of absolutely bizarre behaviour on both the domestic and international fronts. At times, I was (as other readers were I'm sure) left completely flabbergasted at how government was run in the world's largest communist state, not to mention how close (and more importantly, why) we came so close to nuclear war in the early 60s. An excellent read!!

4 people found this helpful

MR. M. WELCH

Great book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 27, 2020

Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed this well researched and well written account of an interesting though very forceful character .

Dundawolf

Generally illuminating in respect of both the man and the ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2015

Verified Purchase

Generally illuminating in respect of both the man and the period both of which are fudamental to understanding the evolution of modern Russia and the psychology of the soviet system. The flaw is that Taubman does not always grasp the socialist context in which Kruschev was steeped as opposed to the personalties involved and I was not wholly convinced by his anaylsis of the Cuban crisis.

Unmissable for those interested in the tragic direction of Russia in the 20th and 21st century and futher evidence of the human extremes lived by the Russian people deliberately neglected by Western ideologues.

Staffan in Stockholm

Amazingly well researched and well written

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 22, 2011

Verified Purchase

After having read Montefiori's biography on Stalin I started wondering how Khrushchev was able to survive Stalin's rule for three decades without being sent off to Siberia or shot as an alleged "enemy of the people" or "spy"? And how much did he change the course of history in the Soviet Union when he got rid of his rivals after Stalin's death and became his own man? And how was the decisionmaking done in the politbureau?

By reading this book I got answers to all my questions and many others as well. It is amazing that so many details of those years in the secretive Communist state are now available to historians and journalists. And Taubman has really made a great researching effort and managed to write the ultimate biography in my view. He deals with all the major conflicts of that time and give great insight into Khrushchev's deliberations and decisions - with a wide range of sources including in depth interviews with his son Sergei.

This book is enlightening and entertaining.

9 people found this helpful