Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?: Understanding Historical Change
The reversion of the Soviet Union to Russia has generated a cottage industry of assessments. Strayer (SUNY at Brockport) has produced a nicely written college text on the subject that would be useful to both political science and history students. Narrower in focus than Michael Kort's recent The Soviet Colossus (M.E. Sharpe, 1996. 4th ed.) or Paul Dukes's A History of Russia (Duke Univ., 1998. 3d. ed.), and complementary to Fred Coleman's The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Empire (LJ 5/1/96), Strayer's study not only incorporates basic historical facts but also muses on how historians do their work. Two-thirds of his book deals with the period after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the mid-1980s, and Strayer thoroughly examines what Gorbachev tried to accomplish and why he failed. Those with a general curiosity about the denouement of the late, great Soviet Union will benefit from Strayer's intelligent survey. For most collections.?Edward Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., AmesCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.