Gorbachev

His Life and Times

By: William Taubman

Narrated by: Henry Strozier

When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, the USSR was one of the world's two superpowers. By 1989, his liberal policies of perestroika and glasnost had permanently transformed Soviet Communism and had made enemies of radicals on the right and left. By 1990 he, more than anyone else, had ended the Cold War, and in 1991, after barely escaping from a coup attempt, he unintentionally presided over the collapse of the Soviet Union he had tried to save.

In the first comprehensive biography of the final Soviet leader, William Taubman shows how a peasant boy became the Soviet system's gravedigger, how he clambered to the top of a system designed to keep people like him down, how he found common ground with America's arch-conservative president Ronald Reagan, and how he permitted the USSR and its East European empire to break apart without using force to preserve them. Throughout, Taubman portrays the many sides of Gorbachev's unique character that, by Gorbachev's own admission, make him "difficult to understand". Was he in fact a truly great leader, or was he brought low in the end by his own shortcomings as well as by the unyielding forces he faced?

Drawing on interviews with Gorbachev himself, transcripts and documents from the Russian archives, and interviews with Kremlin aides and adversaries as well as foreign leaders, Taubman's intensely personal portrait extends to Gorbachev's remarkable marriage to a woman he deeply loved and to the family that they raised together. Nuanced and poignant yet unsparing and honest, this sweeping account has all the amplitude of a great Russian novel.

©2017 William Taubman (P)2017 Recorded Books

Great Telling of the Transition from USSR

Complete and well presented. Thorough and gripping, especially regarding the years of Gorbachev's coming to power, details of the Kremlin's workings, and the end of the USSR.

Excellent

This book taught me so much about the Soviet Union and it's evolution through the Cold War. This was an excellent detailed look at a man of courage and inspiration.

Must read/listen

The insights about the Gorby times are tremendous, cant recommend this book high enough for those that want to really understand more details of how Russia and the USSR republics got where they are today.

Well Written

Exhaustive and well written, this book humanizes a man that changed history in recent memory. Talented voice artist.

I have a new hero

Riveting. Although I lived through these times and thought myself somewhat informed, I learned so much from this book. What a great man, what a great portrait of that man.