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A riveting account of how the Cold War came to an end by one of our leading historians.

About the Author

Robert Service is a fellow of the British Academy and of St Antony's College, Oxford, where he is Professor of Russian History; he is also a visiting fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He has written several books, including the highly acclaimed Lenin: A Biography, Russia: Experiment with a People, Stalin: A Biography, Comrades: A History of World Communism, Trotsky: A Biography, which won the 2009 Duff Cooper Prize, and, most recently, Spies and Commissars. He lives in London.

Reviews

What makes Service's book special is its scholarship. His terrier-like persistence in digging into previously unexcavated archives in Russia, across America and around the internet gives his view of this slice of our recent past a firm documentary foundation ... A magisterial account of a turning point in modern history, whose intellectual rigour and robustness make it unlikely to be bettered.
*Spectator*

Our leading historian of the Soviet Union ... magisterial.
*Observer*

Detailed and clear ... his main strength is his forensic challenge to the clichés and myths on which western triumphalism about the Cold War is based ... Service is an authoritative voice offering a more nuanced view.
*Sunday Times*

A masterful chronicle about personalities and ideas ... The Cold War ended with the demise of the USSR in December 1991. The great biographer of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky here offers a superb account of how and why this unexpected denouement came about.
*Times Higher Education Supplement*

Well-written and thought-provoking.
*Literary Review*

An abundance of superbly organized material.
*Independent*

Absorbingly written, displaying an admirable command of the sources, this book is destined to become a classic of Cold War historical literature.
*International Affairs*

This volume is both important and fascinatingly readable. It is a big book but not an exhausting one, a good read with no wasted space.
*BBC History Magazine*

Service is known for his meaty biographies of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky, so it is unsurprising that in this intricate history he brings magnificently to life the "big four" who did most to end the Cold War.
*Sunday Telegraph*