on 26 december, 1991,

the hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin

for the last time. Yet, just six years earlier, when Mikhail

Gorbachëv became general secretary of the Communist

Party of the Soviet Union and chose Eduard Shevardnadze

as his foreign minister, the Cold War seemed like a perma-

nent fixture in world politics. Until its denouement, no

Western or Soviet politician foresaw that the standoff

between the two superpowers—after decades of struggle

over every aspect of security, politics, economics, and ideas—

would end within the lifetime of the current generation.

Nor was it at all obvious that the Soviet political leadership

would undertake a huge internal reform of the USSR, or

that the threat of a nuclear Armageddon could or would be

peacefully wound down.

Drawing on pioneering archival research, Robert Ser-

vice’s gripping investigation of the final years of the Cold War

pinpoints the extraordinary relationships between Ronald

Reagan, Gorbachëv, George Shultz, and Shevardnadze, who

found ways to cooperate during times of exceptional change

around the world. A story of American pressure and Soviet

long-term decline and overstretch, The End of the Cold War:

1985–1991 shows how a small but skillful group of states-

men grew determined to end the Cold War on their watch

and transformed the global political landscape irreversibly.

RobeRt SeRvice

is a historian and academic who has written extensively

on the entire period of Soviet rule in Russia. Service is the

author of twelve books and a fellow of the British Academy.

He is currently an emeritus professor of Russian history at

the University of Oxford and a senior fellow at Stanford

University’s Hoover Institution.

available as an e-book

visit http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com

follow @public_affairs on twitter

Jacket deSign by Pete gaRceau

Jacket PhotogRaPh © Ronald Reagan libRaRy/getty imageS

hiStoRy

“Authoritative and deeply informed.... [A]

masterful account of the final years of the Cold War,

when a small, remarkable group of statesmen

sought an end to the dangerous standoff between

superpowers.... This study of the end of a cardinal

episode of modern history is scholarly yet accessible:

detailed, expansive, and engaging.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A wholly satisfying, likely definitive, but not

triumphalist account of the end of an era.”

—kirkus, starred review

“Recommended for political scientists, historians, cold

warriors, and those who value diplomacy.”

—library Journal, starred review

http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com

$35.

$35.

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