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School Library Journal Review

Gr 11 Up-A chapter summarizing the history of the Soviet Union from the end of the Brezhnev era to the collapse of the government introduces a compilation of excerpts from articles organized into five topical chapters. The emphasis is on the factors that contributed to the breakup beginning with the problems inherited by Gorbachev and his attempts at reforms that contributed to the disintegration of the empire. The final chapter on the aftermath deals only with military conflicts except for a short introduction to potentially volatile ethnic issues. Most of the essays are by scholars and were originally published between 1983 and 1992 in journals such as Foreign Affairs and Current History. The compendium includes short questions about each essay; excerpts from reports, speeches, and interviews; a chronology; suggestions for further research; and a one-page glossary that is much too short given the array of terms and names that appear in the book. Although a note indicates that some editing was done to make the works more accessible, the vocabulary at times will challenge even advanced students. However, help is given in the form of short introductions that summarize the arguments made and introduce the author of each piece.-Elizabeth Talbot, University of Illinois, Champaign (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gr. 10^-12. For more than a decade before the pivotal events of 1991, the USSR had been crumbling from within. The weak economy that could not produce enough food and consumer goods, the long unpopular and financially draining war in Afghanistan, the Chernobyl disaster, the new politics in Eastern Europe, among other factors, hastened the breakdown of the old order. In 21 fairly brief essays and a lengthy introduction, this new Turning Points series title provides richly detailed commentary on the demise, spanning about 15 years' worth of articles (most, but not all, from U.S. sources) and other pieces. The late New York Times columnist Leonard Silk recalls $31-a-head cauliflower sold in the 1980s by Russian farmers desperately trying some "free market" reforms to make a profit. Author Anthony Arnold notes that Soviet citizens began to perceive their government as weak when it could not control Afghanistan. This perception led to the unraveling of authority at home. Sophisticated reading, the book will nicely support a modern history curriculum. Bibliography; chronology; glossary; discussion questions; primary source documents. --Anne O'Malley