/books/reviews/the_last_empire-serhii_plokhy.m4b

after a long flight i have managed to listen to what i argue is plokhy's seminal work - one of the more engaging recounts on the russian story and the collapse of the soviet union. what is most fascinating in light of this account is how the arc of history always hanged on a razor edge, without predeterminations or steady prediction. nothing about the collapse, in retrospect, seemed as inevitable as expected. most critically i was captured by the individual accounts of the coup plotters and their own individual fates/demises. rather than a straight forward idea that america won through sheer economic, political and social victory a more complex and nuanced view always tends to emerge.

gorbachev who seemed a stately old man in his later interviews with the bbc seemed to cling desperately onto power and preserve the old soviet union while yeltsin plowed forward, stripping his power. the pettiness of kicking gorbachev out of his presidential residence with only one days grace, and the fear that spread in the bush admin of the united states about the rapid collapse of the nation showed how tenuous and at times personal, history can be.

one perspective overlooked that i wish the book covered in greater depth was the experience of the ordinary soviet citizen whether in yakutia, tashkent or chelyabinsk. i felt like those individual stories could have proven greater insight into the atmosphere and reflections on the collapse rather than a pov of just the elite.

while the book primarily focuses on the ukrainian impact in the dissolution of the empire, it overlooks many of the other republics and independence movements happening in georgia, the caucuses, and other eastern european countries. this tunnel vision makes it harder to view it as a book wholly encompassing the big picture geopolitical movements that were occurring at the time.

while i have also listened to a people's tragedy by author orlando figes, the minutiae detailing calls, meetings between soviet or repblic representatives drags on the pacing. while these color in the environment surrounding the collapse, on the flight i notice myself getting distracted at times with how obsequious it became.

4.5/5