A review by nathanschumer
The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union by Serhii Plokhy

medium-paced

4.0

I really like this book--it's a close history of august-december 1991 and the final collapse of the soviet union. I didnt realize the impact of the hardliner coup on Gorbachev or how Yeltsin used the coup and its response to push the Soviet Union's collapse along or how the different ssrs conspired for independence and the sort of general failures of central government over time. It's fascinating to track how the USSR went from inevitability to collapsing over 3 months, and to get these in depth looks at the players, and how the Bush administration ultimately just cut Gorbachev off.