Collapse cover art

Collapse

The Fall of the Soviet Union

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Thousands of incredible audiobooks and podcasts to take wherever you go.
Immerse yourself in a world of storytelling with the Plus Catalogue - unlimited listening to thousands of select audiobooks, podcasts and Audible Originals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Collapse

By: Vladislav M. Zubok
Narrated by: David de Vries
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union - showing how Gorbachev's misguided reforms led to its demise

In 1945, the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong, 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward, the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the 20th century.

Thirty years on, Vladislav Zubok offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR, refuting the notion that the breakup of the Soviet order was inevitable. Instead, Zubok reveals how Gorbachev's misguided reforms, intended to modernize and democratize the Soviet Union, deprived the government of resources and empowered separatism. Collapse sheds new light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances - and the fragility of authoritarian state power.

©2021 Vladislav M. Zubok (P)2021 Tantor 20th Century Modern Russia Military Soviet Union

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Soviet Century cover art
Not One Inch cover art
The Wages of Destruction cover art
Lost Kingdom cover art
To Build a Better World cover art
The Last Shah cover art
A Failed Empire cover art
Blood and Power cover art
Overreach cover art
The Weimar Years cover art
Children of the Night cover art
America in the World cover art
The Peacemaker cover art
America's Last President cover art
Kremlin Winter cover art
Understanding Power cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
A very thorough summary of the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union, with highlights of the choices made that had they been different, might have produced a very different outcome. Provides a good balance to Western sources as it has context missing from a lot of main stream discussion.

Analysis of the paths not taken

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Difficult to praise this book enough. Open your mind, learn and enjoy. Much that we do not understand of what drives Russians revealed.

Understanding Russia

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very in depth look into how the USSR and the cold war ended. My only problem is with not explaining how the Soviet economy got so bad during the Brezhnev era.

Political history of the end of the USSR

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
One of the best history book. Zubak explained the collapse of USSR from different angles and perspective. This book is a must if you want to understand the current Russia

superb

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fantastic detail and analysis, well written and read and good sound quality. A slightly overwhelming amount of information but provides a great amount of insight

Excellent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book helps provide a better understanding of how Russia and the West arrived at the standoff they are today by deconstructing simplistic Western narratives of the Soviet Union's collapse. In particular, it focuses on Mikhail Gorbachevs reforms and how the manner of their execution opened Pandoras box.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in international relations.

Nuance triumphs over lazy narrative

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Having read (or listened to) many history books, I have found that many of the more recent texts are not written very engagingly, although they may have a tremendous depth of scholarship. An example of this is the highly rated "The Pursuit of Power" by Richard J Evans. Evans is a retired professor of history at Cambridge, and is widely regarded as a brilliant scholar. Sadly, at least in my view, his written style is leaden and uninspired. To be fair, I do not mean to pick on Evans, since there are very many other leading historians I could mention whose style does not impress.

This book, by contrast, written by a man for whom English is a second language, sparkles.

It is very long, and yet it never palls. The events, of course, are fascinating, and the perspective provided is one entirely new to most Western readers. The insight into Gorbachev, a vastly significant figure in world history, is invaluable. The implications of this history for the scelerotic bureaucracies in the West are both ominous and interesting. In particular, it is instructive to compare George H W Bush and James Baker III with Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. In describing one of the most puzzling and yet significant changes in recent history, I have never read anything so clear, fair and comprehensive. In illuminating the background to the current terrible events in Ukraine, it is also very valuable.

I can only hope that the author writes more. In particular, a history of Yeltsin's time in office, with Putin's rise to power, would complete the picture of a country moving through a period of crisis.

Finally, the performance of the reader is also excellent. His voice is easy to listen to, and he handles the (numerous) difficult foreign names and words, in several languages, with aplomb. At least to my ears...

Superb history of hugely important period

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book is very heavy going. It’s ultimately worth persevering. In the coverage of the Aug 1991 attempted coup, it really comes into its own though, providing an excellent commentary into how the circumstances that lead up to & effectively facilitated the coup were created. It also explains very clearly, why the coup very quickly withered on the vine.

Perseverance is the key to getting to the end of the book, it is worth it.

Heavy going, but ultimately worth the effort

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Well read. Well written. In depth without being too dense. Page-turner without narrative license being thrown about. Well worth it.

Great overview - sobering to consider a powerful state’s total collapse

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This was superb, intimate yet broad, not sure there is a better book on this period.

A masterful chronical

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews