The first comprehensive account to reveal exactly how the Cold War - and the Soviet Union - came to an end, a process which transformed the world in the late 20th century.

Our leading historian of the Soviet Union … magisterial Observer

The dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the spread of Perestroika throughout the former Soviet bloc was a sea change in world history and two years later resulted in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

In The End of the Cold War, acclaimed Russian historian Robert Service examines precisely how that change came about. Drawing on a vast and largely untapped range of sources, he builds a picture of the two men who spearheaded the breakthrough: Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, and Mikhail Gorbachev, last General Secretary of the Soviet Union and first and last President of the USSR. He also analyses the role of influential players not only in America and the USSR, but throughout Eastern and Western Europe, and focuses especially on Pope John Paul II, Lech Watesa and Vaclav Havel.

Authoritative, compelling and meticulously researched, this is political history at its best.

PRAISE FOR ROBERT SERVICE

An abundance of superbly organized material Independent

Detailed and clear … his main strength is his forensic challenge to the cliches and myths on which western triumphalism about the Cold War is based … Service is an authoritative voice offering a more nuanced view. Sunday Times

Well-written and thought-provoking Literary Review

Masterful chronicle about personalities and ideas … Times Higher Education Supplement

A magisterial account of a turning point in modern history, whose intellectual rigour and robustness make it unlikely to be bettered Spectator