Poorly organized doesn't do this justice: for a book supposedly based on extensive interviews it would be nice to know who is being interviewed and when. No such luck here - a lot of information, but no real answers to anything in here. I was very disappointed - this is really nothing more than a series of anecdotes about the last decade of the Soviet Union. Read with that in mind, I suppose it's worth it, but come prepared for boredom. ( )

The Strange Death of the Soviet Empire by David Pryce-Jones (1995)

A must read book for Cold War and Post Cold War History Buffs.
Beware this is a book that is not easy to read and extends over 400 pages. Language is good and clear. This book is a true first hand account from a long list of often un-identified iron curtain politicos and provides their first hand recollections as recorded by Pryce-Jones himself, a hardened and successful journalist.
Therefore the work will be a record for future reference as the true facts become dispersed and others add their spin and versions of the actual order of events.
The problem however for the casual reader is a lack of organization in this work. There is no time line summary of events. Each country of the former eastern block is covered with naturally overlapping time lines. This is not an academic work as such as there are no foot-notes, references, bibliography or even an index of merit. The chapter headings do not reference the name of the country of interest but are merely bon-mots perhaps. It is most often extremely difficult to identify at all who the first person-singular in any section might be. The detail of events ensuing is often over-whelming. Often it would appear that an hour by hour recollection of events is detailed.
On the plus side the book contains a very clear two page map containing all of the former Soviet Empire constituent countries.
Yes this book will provide a good reference for future historians to set the record straight. The book was written in 1995 at a good time to capture impacts preceding the 1991 demise of the Communist regime.
In short the book best chronicles the break-up of the Soviet Empire and the impacts of Gorbachev’s policies of “glasnost” and “perestroika”. ( )

2910 The Strange Death of the Soviet Empire, by David Pryce-Jones (read 23 Sep 1996) This is a 1995 book by an English journalist who interviewed people concerned with that fantastic and pleasing event and then wrote, in a poorly organized way, this book. There are many interesting things in the book, but I suspect the author is a far right figure, since he says snide things about Graham Greene and even Harry Hopkins--while admitting there is no evidence to support the suspicion that Harry was a fellow traveler. It does seem hard to understand why Gorbachev just gave up some things, such as the DNR. Was Gorbachev really wanting to end Communism? One cannot believe it, but he surely was the principal architect of its fall. ( )