Gorbachev

On My Country and the World
Revised Auflage
ISBN: 978-0-231-11515-5
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 300 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 413 g

Here is the whole sweep of the Soviet experiment and experience as told by its last steward. Drawing on his own experience, rich archival material, and a keen sense of history and politics, Mikhail Gorbachev speaks his mind on a range of subjects concerning Russia's past, present, and future place in the world. Here is Gorbachev on the October Revolution, Gorbachev on the Cold War, and Gorbachev on key figures such as Lenin, Stalin, and Yeltsin.

The book begins with a look back at 1917. While noting that tsarist Russia was not as backward as it is often portrayed, Gorbachev argues that the Bolshevik Revolution was inevitable and that it did much to modernize Russia. He strongly argues that the Soviet Union had a positive influence on social policy in the West, while maintaining that the development of socialism was cut short by Stalinist totalitarianism. In the next section, Gorbachev considers the fall of the USSR. What were the goals of perestroika? How did such a vast superpower disintegrate so quickly? From the awakening of ethnic tensions, to the inability of democrats to unite, to his own attempts to reform but preserve the union, Gorbachev retraces those fateful days and explains the origins of Russia's present crisis.

But Gorbachev does not just train his critical eye on the past. He lays out a blueprint for where Russia needs to go in the next century, suggesting ways to strengthen the federation and achieve meaningful economic and political reforms. In the final section of the book, Gorbachev examines the "new thinking" in foreign policy that helped to end the Cold War and shows how such approaches could help resolve a range of current crises, including NATO expansion, the role of the UN, the fate of nuclear weapons, and environmental problems.

Gorbachev: On My Country and the World reveals the unique vision of a man who was a powerful actor on the world stage and remains a keen observer of Russia's experience in the twentieth century.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gorbachev, Mikhail

Weitere Mitwirkende

Shriver, George

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. The October Revolution, Its Meaning and Significance1. A Blunder of History, Accident or Necessity?2. Was Socialism Built in the Soviet Union?3. Let's Not Oversimplify! A Balance Sheet of the Soviet Years4. October and the World5. One More Balance Sheet: Something Worth Thinking About6. October and Perestroika7. Does Socialism Have Future?8. Summing Up2. The Union Could Have Been Preserved1. A Tragic Turn of Events2. Tbilisi. Baku. Vilinius3. Toward a New Union Treaty4. Referendum on the Union5. The Coup A Stab in the Back and the Intrigues of Yeltsin6. The Belovezh Accord: Dissolution of the USSR7. What Lies Ahead3. The New Thinking: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow1. The Very First Steps2. The Conception (1985-1991)3. Overcoming the Cold War4. The Transitional World Order5. The New Thinking in the Post Confrontational World6. The Challenge of Globalization7. The Challenge of Diversity8. The Challenge of Global Problems9. The Challenge of Power Politics10. The Challenge of Democracy11. The Challenge of Universal Human Values12. The Beginning of History?

Über Autor(innen)

Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991, and President of the Soviet Union, 1988-1991, currently heads the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow and lectures widely. He is also the author of Perestroika and Soviet-American Relations, The Search for a New Beginning: Developing a New Civilization, and The August Coup: The Truth and the Lessons.George Shriver has translated and edited many books, including Nikolai Bukharin's How It All Began: The Prison Novel and Roy Medvedev's On Soviet Dissent, The October Revolution, Let History Judge, and Post-Soviet Russia (all published by Columbia).