Rethinking the Soviet Experience Politics and History since 1917 [Paperback]

In this wide-ranging and provocative book, Stephen F. Cohen cuts through Cold War stereotypes of the Soviet Union to arrive at fresh interpretations of that country's traumatic history and its present-day political realities.
Cohen's lucidly written, revisionist analysis reopens an array of major historical questions. As he probes Soviet history, society, and politics, Cohen demonstrates how this country has remained stable during its long journey from revolution to conservatism. It the process, he suggests more enlightened approaches to American/Soviet relations. Based on the author's many years of study and research, including numerous visits to the USSR, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the state of world affairs today.

Cohen is one of the outstanding...Sovietologists who first made their mark in the 1970s. --The New York Times Book Review

I cannot imagine a better place to begin the search for a deeper understanding of the Soviet Union....A book that non-specialists need in this nuclear weapons age. --The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

A stimulating and provocative reinterpretation of the broad sweep of Soviet history. --Gerald G. Govorchin, Barry University

Cohen's efforts to 'reclaim' Soviet history have enormous contemporary relevance, and deserve the widest possible audience. --Journal of Communist Studies

A volume that anyone seriously interested in Soviet affairs will find well worth reading. --Hedrick Smith

This book presents to a broad audience....Cohen's influential ideas on change in the Soviet system. --American Historical Review

[Cohen] has written a penetrating, lucid, and hard-hitting book on Soviet history and on 'Sovietologists.' --The Slavic Review

This fine book addresses some central issues in Western study of the Soviet experience and does so with intelligence and passion. --The RusslS%