Written by one of Gorbachev’s closest advisers, this is probably the best account published as yet in any language of what went on within the Soviet government as the Cold War came to an end and the Soviet Union fell apart. No scholar should claim to have a clear view of the events of those years without reading it, but one does not have to be a historian to appreciate Grachev’s clear prose and dispassionate insight. A fine read on a very important subject.
