Featuring extensive revisions to the text as well as a new introduction and epilogue--bringing the book completely
up to date on the tumultuous politics of the previous decade and the long-term implications of the Soviet collapse--this
compact, original, and engaging book offers the definitive
account of one of the great historical events of the last fifty years.
Combining historical and geopolitical analysis with an absorbing narrative, Kotkin draws upon extensive research,
including memoirs by dozens of insiders and senior figures, to illuminate the factors that led to the demise of
Communism and the USSR. The new edition puts the collapse in the
context of the global economic and political changes from the 1970s to the present day. Kotkin creates a compelling
profile of post Soviet Russia and he reminds us, with chilling immediacy, of what could not have been predicted--that
the world's largest police state, with several million troops, a
doomsday arsenal, and an appalling record of violence, would liquidate itself with barely a whimper. Throughout
the book, Kotkin also paints vivid portraits of key personalities. Using recently released archive materials, for
example, he offers a fascinating picture of Gorbachev, describing this
virtuoso tactician and resolutely committed reformer as "flabbergasted by the fact that his socialist renewal
was leading to the system's liquidation"--and more or less going along with it.
At once authoritative and provocative, Armageddon Averted illuminates the collapse of the Soviet Union, revealing
how "principled restraint and scheming self interest brought a deadly system to meek dissolution."