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'etat and political intrigue. Honing in on this previously disregarded but crucial period and using recently declassified documents...

Perestroika (restructuring) presents Gorbachev's aspirations and major policies. "Democratization" of management and society is a central if undefined goal. The author admits past stagnation in domestic, and mistakes in foreign, policy. Instead of attaining communism by the end of the century, he aspires for the U.S.S.R. to reach the "world level" of science and technologyappealing to Westerners. But Perestroika reflects the limitations of present...