A page-turning account of the Soviet Union's collapse, from an award-winning expert in the field. 'Today, Russia has revived, and Putin wants his lost republics back, giving this book an additional relevance' "Sunday Times"

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, where he was also named Walter Channing Cabot Fellow in 2013. A leading authority on Eastern Europe, he has lived and taught in Ukraine, Canada, and the United States. He has published extensively in English, Ukrainian, and Russian. For three successive years (2002-2005) his books won first prize of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies.