The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union

Towards the end of 1991, the Soviet Union was formally dissolved. The greedy and slick American governing body declared the event a victory for the US brought about by their social, military, and political might, but they had in fact been working closely with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to facilitate their mighty “victory”; Gorbachev had been eager to disband the USSR, but for none of the reasons that the Americans gave. The Last Empire describes the real events and pressures that caused the eventual breakup of the Soviet Union.

The author portrays events to read like the intrigues of a fantasy court rather than bland diplomacy. Plokhy has an addictive method of revealing the vast array of issues that caused the USSR to collapse: He begins by describing an event and one particular individual’s actions, which leads the reader to wonder, “Who is this person?” Plokhy then obliges with a brief biography and a list of the vital acts that the person committed, and ties this information into a cohesive and fast-paced whole. This book is fascinating!