This image is the cover for the book Gorbachev

Gorbachev

The last president of the Soviet Union discusses Communism, the Cold War, and bringing democracy to Russia in this sweeping political memoir.

Drawing on his own experience and rich archival material, Mikhail Gorbachev shares his illuminating perspective on Russia's past, present, and future place in the world. Beginning with the October Revolution of 1917, he notes how much Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party did to modernize Russia. While he argues that the Soviet Union had a positive influence on social policy in the West, Gorbachev maintains that this positive development was cut short by Stalinist totalitarianism. 

Discussing the fall of the USSR in depth, Gorbachev examines the goals of perestroika, awakening ethnic tensions, the inability of democrats to unite, and his own attempts to preserve the union through reform. In retracing those fateful days, he explains the origins of Russia's present crisis. He then lays out a blueprint for Russia’s future, charting a path toward meaningful economic and political reforms. He also presents possible resolutions to a number of international dilemmas, including NATO expansion, the role of the UN, the fate of nuclear weapons, and environmental problems

Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev was general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1985–1991, and president of the Soviet Union, 1988–1991. He founded and directed the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow. He is also the author of Perestroika and Soviet-American Relations, The Search for a New Beginning: Developing a New Civilization, and The August Coup: The Truth and the Lessons.George Shriver has translated and edited many books, including Nikolai Bukharin's How It All Began: The Prison Novel and Roy Medvedev's On Soviet Dissent, The October Revolution, Let History Judge, and Post-Soviet Russia (all published by Columbia).William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Amherst College. He is the author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (2003), winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography, and Gorbachev: His Life and Times (2017).

Columbia University Press