Description
Book SynopsisIn
From Washington to Moscow veteran US Foreign Service officer Louis Sell draws archival sources and memoirs—many in Russian—as well as his own experiences to trace the history of US–Soviet relations between 1972 and 1991 and to explain what caused the Soviet Union's collapse.
Trade Review"A masterfully written book,
From Washington to Moscow offers a comprehensive, magnificent, and primarily chronological narrative of the USSR—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—under the leadership of its General Secretaries—Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko, and Mikhail Gorbachev—up to its stupendous collapse, and the ascent of Boris Yeltsin, the First President of the Russian Federation." -- Sapphire Ng * Impeccable Business blog *
"[A] rich and readable history.... A rare and intimate look at Gorbachev and the events leading up to his presidency...." * Kirkus Reviews *
"Books on the era abound, but Sell’s account helps remind us what really happened, and in some cases fills in some important gaps. His book combines meticulous use of archival and other sources with telling personal reminiscences and nuanced observations. A particular strength is his grasp of the personalities involved." -- Edward Lucas * Center for European Policy Analysis *
"Sell is obviously a talented writer who is able to simplify complicated issues without removing their important subtleties. He also breaks down Cold War arms negotiations to a point where any reader can clearly understand which games each side was playing and who really won or lost despite the final number of missiles. The fact that he was present at many of the negotiations lends a sense of clarity to his writing that is rarely seen on this issue."
-- April Curtis * LSE Review of Books *
"Methodologically rigorous and qualitative, Sell deploys thorough archival research aided by personal observation, which makes the book a fluid and enjoyable, but serious, read. It is also a welcome departure from contemporary political scholarship, which tends to be mostly quantitative in nature and is often devoid of the historical ‘long views.’"
-- Sumantra Maitra * International Affairs *
"[A] modest and sensible account of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its aftermath. . . ." -- Robert Cottrell * New York Review of Books *
"[T]his is a story that is extremely vivid, lively in its detail and persuasive in its assessments, that engagingly recreates what is now a bygone era for many readers and so a world they have difficulty imagining through dry, academic analysis." -- Robert D. English * H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews *
"An engaging, detailed narrative of Soviet developments and U.S.-Soviet relations that draws principally on a highly impressive range of memoir and documentary sources, especially Soviet and many unavailable in English, that have appeared since 1991.... I can testify to the meticulous care with which he has constructed his narrative, and to how successfully it weaves together data from those sources and his own lived experience."
-- Thomas W. Simons, Jr * Journal of Cold War Studies *
Table of ContentsPrologue. Two Treaties, Two Eras 1
1. First Visit to the USSR: Things Are Not as They Seem 5
2. Leonid Brezhnev: Power and Stagnation 9
3. Repression and Resistance 22
4. The Nixon Years 41
5. A Tale of Two Cities: Vladivostok and Helsinki 63
6. The Unhappy Presidency of Jimmy Carter 76
7. Two Crises and an Olympiad 96
8. Interregnum: Andropov in Power 114
9. Ronald Reagan's First Administration 128
10. Eagle vs. Bear: US and Soviet Approaches to Strategic Arms Control 145
11. Mikhail Gorbachev 165
12. Gorbachev Ascendant 184
13. New Kid on the Block: Gorbachev Emerges in US-Soviet Relations 196
14. "I Guess I Should Say Michael": The Turn in US-Soviet Relations 213
15. 1989: Year of Miracles or Time of Troubles? 242
16. Stumbling toward Collapse: Gorbachev's Final Eighteen Months 270
17. The August Coup 294
18. Red Star Falling 312
19. Why Did the USSR Collapse? 322
Postscript 339
Notes 351
Bibliography 383
Index 399
