Description
Book SynopsisMikhail Gorbachev is the man who changed everything. It was Gorbachev''s initiative that raised the Iron Curtain; his actions that resulted in one of the era''s most symbolic events, the demolition on the Berlin Wall; his reforms that set in train events leading to the fall of Communism.
Twelve years ago, when Gorbachev came to power, the globe was still divided into two armed camps, one for each superpower - as it had been ever since 1945. The Cold War dominated international politics, from Angola to Afghanistan. The man who became leader of the Soviet Union in 1985 was much younger than his predecessors, yet there was little else to distinguish him from the stony-faced apparatchiks waving from the Kremlin. He seemed a model Communist, ideologically committed to socialism, raised wholly within the confines of the Party. Yet Gorbachev realized that the system could not continue. What was it about this man which enabled him to see so much more clearly than his colleagues?
Like
Trade Review
One of the more fascinating stories of our time * Guardian *
A remarkable leader's own account of his rise and fall...Engrossing...Great history as seen through the unrelenting scrutiny of a very great man * Daily Telegraph *
[Gorbachev's] 600 pages of memoirs is a wonder on its own, his own story recited in a manner worthy of the theme...He has told the whole truth * Michael Foot, Evening Standard *
These memoirs are the story of a man remarkable for much more than a blessedly pacific turn of mind...They show someone grappling continually and apparently sincerely with vast issues at home and abroad * Observer *
