Synopsis
'Lively and insightful' – The Times
'Magnificent' – The Guardian
'A masterly piece of scholarship, written like a political thriller' – The Irish Times
‘Superb’ – Literary Review
‘A must-read’ – Mark Galeotti
'Grips the reader from page one' – Andrew Roberts
In August 1991, eight ruthless conspirators attempted to seize control of the USSR. Instead, they destroyed it.
From our finest historian of Soviet Russia, Professor Robert Service, comes a dramatic, minute-by-minute account of the August Coup, the extraordinary flashpoint that ushered in the end of the USSR and changed global politics forever.
When the architects of the coup abducted Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachëv from his Crimean holiday home, they intended to restore strict authoritarian rule. Instead, their desperate plot devolved into a shambolic failure, accelerating the collapse of the Soviet Union and triggering a chaotic shift to capitalism.
Masterfully linking this three-day crisis to present-day Russia, Service exposes how the fallout of the coup, and the corruption that followed under Boris Yeltsin, ultimately paved the way for the rise of Vladimir Putin. The result is this gripping, deeply researched chronicle of one of Russia’s most pivotal turning points.
Details
Reviews
“Robert Service is the English-speaking world’s foremost historian of 20th-century Russia and Bolshevism . . . Service has displayed a remarkable grasp of the vast sources, and a delightfully clear writing style which makes even the complexities of Soviet bureaucracy easy to understand . . . Service guides the reader through the chaos of the collapsing system and the machinations of the coup leaders with ease and grace . . . magnificent”John Simpson, The Guardian
“A masterly piece of scholarship, written like a political thriller . . . it’s likely to become a definitive account of a key moment in the last days of the Soviet Union ”NJ McGarrigle, The Irish Times
“He is a master of old-time prosopography . . . a meticulous account”Bruce Clark, The New Statesman
“A lively and insightful account . . . [from] Britain's foremost expert on Soviet history”Edward Lucas, The Times
