With conflicts brewing between Russia and the United States, the need for balanced, accessible scholarship that benefits from new materials and critical perspec... » 

With conflicts brewing between Russia and the United States, the need for balanced, accessible scholarship that benefits from new materials and critical perspectives is imperative. In seven lucid, groundbreaking essays, Stephen F. Cohen questions many conventional assumptions about the course of Soviet history, the fallof communism, and the impact of Russia's policies at home and abroad. Written for specialists and general readers, Cohen'sessays are framed by a chronological narrative that focuses on key turning points and lost alternatives. Beginning with Nikolai Bukharin, Stalin's preeminent challenger and victim, and the unexpected return of millions of survivors of Stalin's terror under Nikita Krushchev, Cohen shows how their tragic fates shaped the latter-day Soviet Union. Turning to more recent events, Cohen examines the political fates of the Soviet state's leading conservative, Yegor Ligachev, and its greatest reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev. Through these figures he raises even more provocative issues, including an assertion that the Soviet was capable of reform and that its breakup wasn't inevitable. Finally and most urgently, Cohen critiques the United State's triumphalist policy toward post-Soviet Russia since 1992 and presents a bold new approach for handling today's resurgent Russia. «