Name: The Last Empire
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)
ISBN: 9781780746463

Serhii Plokhy

Serhii Plokhy, a world-renowned historian, presents a profoundly revisionist, page-turning account of the Soviet Union's collapse. The book advances ground-breaking revisionist arguments - including that the West didn't actually want to see the end of the Soviet Union.

The Final Days of the Soviet Union

The Last Empire

BY THE AUTHOR OF CHERNOBYL: HISTORY OF A TRAGEDY, WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2018 WINNER OF THE PUSHKIN HOUSE RUSSIAN BOOK PRIZE 2015 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 Plokhy presents a page-turning account of the preceding five months of drama, filled with failed coups d’état and political intrigue. Honing in on this previously disregarded but crucial period and using recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, he shatters the established myths of 1991 and presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union’s final months. Plokhy argues that contrary to the triumphalist Western narrative, George H. W. Bush desperately wanted to preserve the Soviet Union and keep Gorbachev in power, and that it was Ukraine and not the US that played the key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. The consequences of those five months and the myth-making that has since surrounded them are still being felt in Crimea, Russia, the US, and Europe today. With its spellbinding narrative and strikingly fresh perspective, The Last Empire is the essential account of one of the most important watershed periods in world history, and is indispensable reading for anyone seeking to make sense of international politics today.

The Last Empire The Final Days of the Soviet Union

Reviews

Highlights