this new edition of Stephen Whites best-selling introductory text has been revised throughout and now examines the full cycle of this period of revolutionary change from its Brezhnevite origins to postcommunist disintegration.

Preface; 1. From Brezhnev to Gorbachev; 2. Democratising the political system; 3. Glasnost and public life; 4. Reforming the planned economy; 5. The Soviet multinational state; 6. The Soviet Union and the wider world; 7. Gorbachev and the politics of perestroika; 8. Towards a new Russia?