Even if this book had appeared anonymously, the reader could have recognized the authorship of Stephen F. Cohen. The volume is a formidable accomplishment, consisting of seven related but diverse essays. The text itself is just under 200 pages, and it carries footnotes covering almost another 100 pages. This is vintage Cohen: from depicting Nikolai Bukharin's tragic place in Soviet history to recounting Mikhail Gorbachev's enormous accomplishments—which Cohen feels are not properly appreciated—and culminating in sharp criticism of Americans’ writing, past and present, about Russia and the Soviet Union.
Cohen does not want to recount the “history of the victors.” He speaks of looking for “alternatives,” and a major motif is the thought that Westerners, particularly Americans, have not properly understood Russian realities and possibilities. Bukharin, he argues, was a superior alternative to Iosif Stalin. Similarly, Gorbachev was eminently superior to his successor, Boris Yeltsin, but just needed more time...