The last empire: the final days of the Soviet Union
Journal: Choice Reviews Online
Year: 2014

On Christmas Day 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union. By the next day the USSR was officially no more and the USA had emerged as the world's sole superpower. Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy presents a page-turning account of the preceding five months of drama, filled with failed coups d'etat and political intrigue. Honing in on this previously disregarded but crucial period and using recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants,