Featuring extensive revisions to the text as well as a new introduction and epiloguebringing the book completely up to date on the tumultuous politics of the previous decade and the longterm implications of the Soviet collapsethis compact original and engaging book offers the definitive account of one of the great historical events of the last fifty years Combining historical and geopolitical analysis with an absorbing narrative Kotkin draws upon extensive research including memoirs by dozens of insiders and senior figures to illuminate the factors that led to the demise of Communism and the USSR The new edition puts the collapse in the context of the global economic and political changes from the s to the present day Kotkin creates a compelling profile of post Soviet Russia and he reminds us with chilling immediacy of what could not have been predictedthat the worlds largest police state with several million troops a doomsday arsenal and an appalling record of violence would