{"id":39823,"date":"2024-02-26T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-26T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=39823"},"modified":"2024-02-26T09:52:08","modified_gmt":"2024-02-26T09:52:08","slug":"vladislav-m-zubok-collapse-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=39823","title":{"rendered":"Vladislav M. Zubok, \u201eCollapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union\u201c"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union\u2014showing how Gorbachev\u2019s misguided reforms led to its demise
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In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong with five thousand nuclear-tipped missiles and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the twentieth century.
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Thirty years on, Vladislav Zubok offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR, refuting the notion that the breakup of the Soviet order was inevitable. Instead, Zubok reveals how Gorbachev\u2019s misguided reforms, intended to modernize and democratize the Soviet Union, deprived the government of resources and empowered separatism. Collapse<\/em> sheds new light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances\u2014and the fragility of authoritarian state power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vladislav M. Zubok<\/strong> is professor of international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science and author of A Failed Empire, Zhivago\u2019s Children, and The Idea of Russia. He is a finalist for the 2022 Cundill History Prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cA deeply informed account of how the Soviet Union fell apart.\u201d\u2014Rodric Braithwaite, Financial Times<\/em>

\u201cA compelling account. . . . [A] masterly analysis.\u201d\u2014Joshua Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal<\/em>

\u201cAn excellent study. . . . There have been several books over the past quarter century that have covered this territory. Zubok\u2019s is the most comprehensive, detailed and original.\u201d\u2014Victor Sebestyen, Sunday Times<\/em>

\u201cThis new take on the unexpected collapse of the Soviet empire, by an eminent Soviet-born historian, zooms in on the economic failings and pressures that drove the collapse. . . . Zubok depicts a fateful coalition of idealists, grifters, and thugs that ended up shaping the disastrous 1990s.\u201d\u2014James Palmer, Foreign Policy<\/em>

“By far the best book on the history of the fall of the USSR.”\u2014Branko Milanovic
\u201cThoroughly and deeply researched and emotionally engaging for the reader, it is difficult to envisage how there could be a better book on the subject.\u201d\u2014Geoffrey Roberts, Irish Times<\/em>

\u201c[A] remarkably reliable narrative, effectively covering two years, 1990 and 1991. [Zubok\u2019s] exactitude punctures many a myth, especially on the economy, as he sifts an immense body of research to discover, among other things, that egregious financial mismanagement, not excessive defence outlays, proved fatal.\u201d\u2014Stephen Kotkin, Times Literary Supplement<\/em>

\u201cAn impressive history.\u201d\u2014Literary Review of Canada<\/em>

\u201cThe first comprehensive political history of the Gorbachev years to be based almost exclusively on original (mostly Russian-language) archival sources. . . . Zubok makes the most convincing case to date for considering seriously \u2018the decisive and implacable role of money in the Soviet demise.\u2019\u201d\u2014Yana Skorobogatov, Russian Review<\/em>

\u201cNo book will likely be produced soon that matches Zubok\u2019s in detail, power, and depth in marshalling the evidence. This book is a central, indispensable work on the end of the USSR.\u201d\u2014Canadian-American Slavic Studies Review<\/em>

\u201cNo book will likely be produced soon that matches Zubok\u2019s in detail, power, and depth in marshalling the evidence. This book is a central, indispensable work on the end of the USSR.\u201d\u2014Bradley D. Woodworth, Canadian-American Slavic Studies<\/em>

\u201cUsing remarkably copious archival sources, which he has mastered with impressive thoroughness . . . Zubok\u2019s study presents a powerful, detailed picture of puzzling events of great importance.\u201d\u2014Gary Saul Morson, New Criterion<\/em>

Finalist for the 2022 Cundill History Prize

Winner of the Reginald Zelnik Book Prize, sponsored by ASEEES

\u201cAs lucid as it is even-handed, this book will become the new standard for anyone seeking to make sense of the chaos, optimism and foolishness that led to the end of Mikhail Gorbachev\u2019s attempts at reform and the downfall of the Soviet Union.\u201d\u2014Mark Galeotti, author of A Short History of Russia<\/em>

\u201cA drama of epic proportions, the Soviet collapse never looked so contingent on human courage and follies, accidents and missed opportunities, as in this book. . . . The best narrative of the Soviet Union\u2019s end we have so far.\u201d\u2014Vladimir Pechatnov, coeditor of The Kremlin Letters<\/em>

\u201cThis is a deeply researched indictment of Mikhail Gorbachev\u2019s timidity and mercurial policies that backfired. Zubok invokes George Kennan\u2019s hope at the dawn of the Cold War that the USSR would experience \u2018gradual mellowing.\u2019 Instead, Russia at the turn of the twenty-first century was ripe for the rise of Putin.\u201d\u2014Strobe Talbott, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and author of The Great Experiment<\/em>

\u201cA deeply researched, gripping account of the final Soviet unravelling: Gorbachev\u2019s growing weakness, infighting among his opponents, breakaways to independence by the USSR\u2019s constituent republics, including Russia itself, all in the face of growing reluctance of the Bush administration and the Western alliance to help Gorbachev salvage a democratic union.\u201d\u2014William Taubman, Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era<\/em>, and of Gorbachev: His Life and Times<\/em>

\u201cIn this provocative, deeply-researched retelling of Mikhail Gorbachev\u2019s turbulent six years in the Kremlin, Zubok challenges the conventional wisdom that the USSR was destined to collapse. He attributes the demise to Gorbachev\u2019s ideological messianism, his failed reforms and repeated policy zig-zags. A must-read for those seeking to understand how a nuclear superpower could have imploded peacefully\u2014and why today\u2019s Russian leaders are so  determined to restore Russia\u2019s great power status.\u201d\u2014Angela Stent, author Putin\u2019s World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Book Details<\/a><\/blockquote>