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

5.0

The Last Empire examines the internal reasons why the Soviet Union fell apart instead of the oft believed myth that the USA had won the Cold War. Several factors are explored on why the USSR dissolved such as the turn to a democratic electorate via Perestroika and Glasnost, Ukraine's drive for independence and Boris Yeltsin's complicated feud with Michail Gorbachev. Plokhy also explores how the US tried to keep the USSR from disintegrating because the US wanted to keep the USSR in charge of its nuclear arsenal and wanted to use the USSR as its junior partner in foreign policy.