Yeltsin; A Revolutionary Life
Bruce Reedy (Author photograph) New York: Thomas Dunn Books )An imprint of St. Martin's Press], 2000. First U.S. Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. xxiii, [1],934, [2] pages. Footnotes. Map. Illustrations. Brief Chronology. Glossary. Notes. Bibliography. Index. In English with some Russian text. Author dated inscription in Russian on the fep. Inscription translates as To Dear Barbara with great respect and gratitude for her surprising patience. Leon April 13, 2000. Excerpted from the American Enterprise Institute website: "Leon Aron is Resident Scholar and Director of Russian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of three books and over 300 articles and essays. He is the author of the first full-scale scholarly biography of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life; Russia s Revolution: Essays 1989-2006; and, most recently, Roads to the Temple: Memory, Truth, Ideas and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991. Dr. Aron earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University, has contributed an opening chapter to The New Russian Foreign Policy (Council on Foreign Relations, 1998), the first detailed and systematic account of the intellectual and moral revolution that precipitated the Soviet collapse. Dr. Aron has contributed numerous essays and articles to newspapers and magazines. From 2014 to 2020, Dr. Aron was a governor of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the operations of several international broadcasting outlets, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. From 1990 to 2004, he was a panelist on Looking from America (Gliadya iz Ameriki), a weekly Voice of America Russian-language radio and television show. Dr. Aron has taught at Georgetown University. Derived from a Kirkus review: If Russia, in Churchill’s words, is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, this splendid biography by Aron does much to unwrap the mystery of one of Russia’s most enigmatic statesmen. Opinion in the West about Yeltsin has veered from incomprehension through idolatry almost to contempt. While showing Yeltsin’s conspicuous faults, it is Aron’s great virtue to reveal his even more impressive virtues: Even as an apparatchik, Yeltsin showed an enormous capacity for work, was demanding, incorruptible, and almost disdainful of the privileges to which he was entitled. But his supreme virtue has been his courage: his unprecedented criticism of the corruption of the old guard at the 70th Party Conference in 1987; his steadfast refusal to bow to attempts to discipline him; the memorable moment when (with Gorbachev in detention) he rallied the democratic forces by his speech from a tank; the economic revolution which, in the teeth of diehard opposition, he brought to Russia; and, perhaps most remarkable of all, his insistence—in the face of plummeting polls, pessimistic advisers, and his own illness—on holding democratic elections as scheduled in 1996, ultimately winning against all odds. In between there were some inglorious moments: the brutal and incompetent war in Chechnya; the periods of passivity, depression, and apathy; and the times when a corrupt group "under the pseudonym Yeltsin" seemed to run the country. But for all these failings, Yeltsin has provided, in the most tolerant and the least aggressive regime in Russian history, "the irreducible tripartite core of a modern democracy": a free press, free opposition, and free elections. In richness of information, analysis, and judgment, Aron illuminates not only a great man but a supremely critical period of Russian history. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Boris Yeltsin, Russia, Gorbachev, Communism, Perestroika, Elections, Anatoliy Chubais, Russian Federation, Egor Gaidar, Ruslan Khazbulatov, Privitization, Nikolay Ryzhkov, Sverdlovsk, Zhirinovskiy, Zyuganov
ISBN: 0312251858
[Book #87544]
Price: $500.00