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Gorbachev: His Life and Times Paperback – Illustrated, September 11, 2018

by William Taubman (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 443 ratings
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Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

The definitive biography of the transformational Russian leader by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Khrushchev.

"Essential reading for the twenty-first [century]." ―Radhika Jones, The New York Times Book Review

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.

90 illustrations
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  1. Print length
    880 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    September 11, 2018
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 1.5 x 9.3 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9780393356205
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393356205
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A masterpiece of narrative scholarship."
― Strobe Talbott, The New York Review of Books

"A meticulously researched, clear-eyed volume that will undoubtedly stand for years as the definitive account of the Soviet Union’s last ruler."
― Max Boot, Wall Street Journal

"Masterful.… Taubman intimately portrays an epic tragic hero of Sophoclean proportion. Gorbachev is likely to be a subject of interest to future historians for centuries, perhaps millennia."
― Forbes

"A superbly researched story of a politician of such decency as to seem, in our more pessimistic, darker moment, almost beyond imagining."
― The New Yorker

"William Taubman’s extraordinary new biography, Gorbachev: His Life and Times, is fly-on-the-wall history.… A riveting page-turner.… His book is anything but a solemn academic tome. It’s gripping."
― Mark Katkov, NPR

"Superb.… Enlightening.…With great skill [Taubman] lays bare the evolution that was so important to [Gorbachev’s] later actions."
― David E. Hoffman, Washington Post

"[A] deeply penetrating history and engrossing psychological study, Taubman draws on a wide range of sources and interviews…to render every major development of the former Soviet leader’s six-year tenure with depth and completeness."
― Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs

"[Taubman] applies a Tolstoyan lens to Russia’s recent history and displays particular sensitivity in his assessment of a life that would prove richer than politics."
― The Economist

"William Taubman has now done for Gorbachev what he had previously done for Khrushchev, giving us the full life deeply grounded in the Soviet and Russian archives, here with the added benefit of Gorbachev’s complete cooperation. Perhaps a hundred years from now, when our perspective on Russia’s role in the world has further clarified, another biography will be needed. For now, however, Gorbachev is the closest thing to the final word that history allows."
― Joseph J. Ellis, author of The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783

"Remarkably, the two most memorable leaders of the Soviet Union in the last half of its existence now have the same superb biographer. William Taubman’s Gorbachev, like his Khrushchev, is an extraordinary achievement, full of new information, filled with shrewd judgments, a two-in-a-row triumph in the writing of great lives."
― John Lewis Gaddis, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of George F. Kennan: An American Life

"I have had the privilege of knowing many of the great men and women who brought momentous change to the last part of the twentieth century. My friend Mikhail Gorbachev was outstanding among them. So this biography, especially with its attention to his early formative years, is a great addition to our understanding of a key historical period."
― George P. Shultz

About the Author

William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Amherst College. His biography, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0393356205
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Illustrated edition (September 11, 2018)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 880 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780393356205
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393356205
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.83 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.5 x 9.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 443 ratings

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William Taubman

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4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
443 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

tapehead/2
5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh new look at the most consequential decade of the XX century
Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2017
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I am still half way through the book, and so far it has been well worth the read. I have lived in the USSR through the years described in the book, and therefore I have a lot to compare to from my own experience. The book gives a valuable fresh perspective of an American writer on the late Soviet society, is very well researched and based on the information that only recently has fully come to light. When a country disintegrates, it offers a rare glimpse into the power structure that is usually hidden from view in stable societies. There are several other books that study the decline and fall of the Soviet Union, to mention a few, by Judy Shelton, Chris Miller, Yegor Gaidar. These mostly address the economic decline and inflation. Taubman's book complements this with the political history. Glasnost was widely welcomed but it undermined the legitimacy of power of the party, and rapidly reduced its ability to govern. Deng Xiao Ping's reforms were wiser in that they foresaw this danger and prioritized economic reforms instead.
39 people found this helpful
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Molly T.
4.0 out of 5 stars Understanding a Complicated Man
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2022
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A lengthy, but wonderfully written profile of the man who changed Russia. Author William Taubman's research dives deep and produces an insightful picture of a man who soars as a leader, but fails to produce the permanent change he sought. The author creates a clear map of the achievements and failures and the causes of each. A must read for any Russia-phile or reader interested in the Russia's short-lived experiment in democracy. The world is a better place because of Gorbachev despite the Putin's destruction of democracy and refusal to accept economic reforms in a country that so badly needs them.
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Michael Falls
5.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustive Bio Of A Near Great Man
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2019
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Exhaustive, and okay, (only) occasionally exhausting bio. As we've seen before, Taubman is an excellent, thorough biographer, in this case of a highly important figure of the late 20th century, and Russian history, who succeeded ultimately in giving Russia a taste of democracy they had seen only briefly in 1917, before it was smothered, and was smothered again in the 90's and beyond, because Gorbachev had no means of sustaining it. Still, he gave them a glimpse, howsoever rejected, that might one day shine through again.
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Carter D Brooks
5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive biography
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2017
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Overall this book told me more about Mr. Gorbachev than I really needed to know, but that's a problem with me not the book. I wondered as I read how the author could present so much detail but when I found that the last quarter of the nearly 900 pages (print version) was required to list bibliography, personal interviews, meeting minutes, correspondence and much more, the validity of the text material seemed amply justified. This is truly a scholarly opus of major magnitude, cast in a form approachable by a general reader. It pays tribute to a man who, for a while at least, did much to put us on a course toward peace and stability. One can only hope that there are more Gorbachevs out there somewhere. .
24 people found this helpful
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Michael C. Chisick
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2019
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Gorbachev was one of the most remarkable and gifted, but tragically misunderstood, politicians of our times. It was his misfortune to hit the peak phase of his transformation of the politics of his nation and the world with President George H.W. Bush. Although Bush had a star-studded resume, he lacked the vision, depth of understanding, and gifts required for diplomacy and governance. America, Russia, and the world lost an historic opportunity for a better outcome for all of us. The depth of coverage of this book of internal Soviet politics was very beneficial.
A great book about a great man.
5 people found this helpful
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Serge J. Van Steenkiste
4.0 out of 5 stars Statesman with a Mixed Legacy Operating in a World Too Often Gripped by Short-Termism
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2018
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William Taubman gives a balanced account of the life, accomplishments, and failures of Mikhail Gorbachev. Like his Moscow University friend Zdeněk Mlynář, Mr. Gorbachev sincerely believed that Communism could have a human face.

Mr. Taubman clearly explains why the dual shock therapy of “Glasnost” and “Perestroika” that Mr. Gorbachev administered to the former Soviet Union led to 1) the temporary democratization of what is today authoritarian, anti-Western Russia, 2) the economic ruin of many of his fellow citizens, 3) the end of the cold war, 4) the reunification of Germany, and 5) the mostly peaceful disintegration of the former Soviet Union. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Gorbachev has been widely lionized in the West while widely despised in Russia.

Furthermore, Mr. Taubman shows with much dexterity the lack of long-term vision of Western leaders, especially the American political elite in the late 1980s and 1990s. The U.S. political leadership displayed the same short-termism that Wall Street has displayed to this day in offering negligible economic assistance to both the fast-declining Soviet Union and Russia. Winston Churchill wrote on that subject: “The politician thinks about the next election – the statesman thinks about the next generation.” Like well-known Western invaders, these smug Western political leaders have grossly underestimated the resilience of the Russian people. Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union, is again a formidable world power despite its well-known weaknesses.

In summary, Mr. Taubman makes a compelling argumentation that Mr. Gorbachev was exceptional as both a Soviet ruler and world statesman.
9 people found this helpful
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Andrew Clark
3.0 out of 5 stars This is a popular look at an important Soviet figure
Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2022
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The book is well written and an interesting read but I found myself wanting a text like Herrin's The Formation of Christendom or Deutscher's last volume on Trotsky's life, The Prophet Outcast because of their comprehensive spread and continuing insight. I didn't get either of these from the Gorbachev text, but this is because of my personal bent, personal preference when it comes to reading biography and history.
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Ruth
5.0 out of 5 stars Gorbachev Biography
Reviewed in Mexico on August 16, 2021
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Aún no termino de leerlo 693 páginas, pero me encanta. Lo recomiendo mucho!
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Ruth
5.0 out of 5 stars Gorbachev Biography
Reviewed in Mexico on August 16, 2021
Aún no termino de leerlo 693 páginas, pero me encanta. Lo recomiendo mucho!
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John Hopper
5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant biography, if slightly excessively detailed in places
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 13, 2022
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This is a splendidly detailed and expertly researched biography, while still being eminently readable. It brings out the enormous strengths and exuberant humanity of its subject, as well as his fatal weaknesses, hypocrisies and explosive tendency to alienate those who politically could have been his allies, e.g. the intelligentsia. I am always sorry for him when I read accounts of his ouster, though (one minor flaw) the material on that is all at the beginning of the book, not in its chronological place in the narrative, so that when I went back to skim through it again after the penultimate chapter ended 10 days before the ouster, I felt a little less sorry for him, being able to understand how impossible he must have been to work with. The final chapter details the sorry and shabby treatment he and his family received following his ouster, including being immediately expunged from the media. I have read editions of Pravda from the day of his ouster onwards and he really does literally vanish from the Soviet political world in print, no personal mentions at all, even negative ones. There is no entry for him in editions of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia published afterwards. Perhaps the most apposite epitaph is Roy Medvedev's, though some qualification must be added: Khrushchev rehabilitated 20 million people sent to the Gulag under Stalin and this outweighs all his faults and mistakes, albeit that Khrushchev was himself complicit in many of these repressions. 5/5

Gorbachev: His Life and Times (1/9/22-13/9/22)

This is the second mammoth biography by this author of a Soviet leader I have read, after his even bigger tome on Khrushchev in 2007. Gorbachev of course has a massive claim to be one of the most significant statesmen of the second half of the 20th century, and is widely regarded as such certainly in western Europe and north America, though largely not in his own country. He was "the only politician in Russian history who, having full power in his hands, voluntarily opted to limit it and even risk losing it, in the name of principled moral values". This would in most countries endear him to many people, though not in Russia, which has never been able to develop a democratic tradition, where there is a many centuries long tradition of a preference for authoritarian rule by one man (or very occasionally woman, in the 18th century anyway).

This exhaustively well researched biography traces his early life in a peasant farming family in southern Russia and the formative influences of his father and maternal grandfather in particular, his going to Moscow University to study law, meeting his wife Raisa, and his early climbing up the party hierarchy, to reach the Politburo in 1979-80 before the age of 50, by some distance its younger member. Most of this long book understandably deals with the six years of his leadership from 1985-91, first as general secretary of the Communist Party and latterly also as President of the USSR, when the country started to break up under the influence of the numerous internal and external pressures, the economy declining further and further, even while his democratic reforms (glasnost) gave his fellow countrymen a freedom they had literally never experienced before and which many of them, to some extent, did not know how to use and did not thank him for.

Only the last of 19 chapters deals with the quarter century (and more) of his post Soviet life, his international efforts to promote his ideals, and the tragic relatively early death of his beloved Raisa from leukemia in 1999. The author concludes that "despite his flaws and his failure to achieve all his noble aims, he was a tragic hero who deserves our understanding and admiration", and I agree with this conclusion as, I suspect, would most readers. His recent death, which prompted my reading of this book, will, I feel, compel others to evaluate his life's work in a largely positive way.

My only minor criticism of this book would be the extensive quotes from so many observers, so that the descriptions of some meetings/summits feel almost as long in the reading as the events themselves.
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Rangan Roy
1.0 out of 5 stars Hugely disappointed
Reviewed in India on August 18, 2020
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This is the rating for the seller named 'Trans Infopreneur Inc'...They are selling Paperback by mentioning Hardcover in the description..
2 people found this helpful
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Ornella
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Reviewed in Italy on October 27, 2019
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An incredible biography about one of the most brilliant politician in modern history
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rotmanpr
5.0 out of 5 stars Gorbatchev lives!
Reviewed in Canada on November 11, 2017
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A beautifully written in depth portrait of a great but also flawed man. Too bad he didn’t get to achieve his dreams but he did change history dramatically. One does come to admire him and his foresight and Taubman brings him to life with great penache and rigorous research. Thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile.
2 people found this helpful
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