By turns radical, uncertain, ambitious and autocratic, Mikhail Gorbachev and his bid to reform the Soviet Union have shaped the contemporary world. This concise and lively book provides an introduction to the man and his times, setting them in the context of a decaying and ramshackle empire and an ideology long since betrayed by its professed followers. Drawing on the latest memoirs and scholarship, this book follows Gorbachev's increasingly desperate attempts to control the forces he unleashed and hold together a state whose days were over.

Mark Galeotti is a scholar of Russian security affairs with a career spanning academia, government service and business, a prolific author and frequent media commentator. He heads the Mayak Intelligence consultancy and is an Honorary Professor at University College London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies as well as holding fellowships with RUSI, the Council on Geostrategy and the Institute of International Relations Prague. He has been Head of History at Keele University, Professor of Global Affairs at New York University, a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a Visiting Professor at Rutgers-Newark, Charles University (Prague) and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He is the author of over 25 books including A Short History of Russia (Penguin, 2021) and The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War (Yale University Press, 2022).

The Decay of the Soviet Union
Yurii Andropov and the Rise of Mikhail
Gorbachev Electing Gorbachev
Gorbachev the Technocrat: Uskoreniye and the Attempt to Modernise
Gorbachev the Reformer: Glasnost' and Perestroika
Gorbachev the Gambler: Democratisation
Gorbachev the Revolutionary: the End of the Soviet Union
Appendices
Chronology
Gallery of Main Characters
Bibliography and Guide to Further Reading
Index
Map.