Why read Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives?

Book cover of Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War

Book description

In this wide-ranging and acclaimed book, Stephen F. Cohen challenges conventional wisdom about the course of Soviet and post-Soviet history. Reexamining leaders from Nikolai Bukharin, Stalin's preeminent opponent, and Nikita Khrushchev to Mikhail Gorbachev and his rival Yegor Ligachev, Cohen shows that their defeated policies were viable alternatives and that…

Explore

Topics

Genres

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Hall Gardner

Author

I like this book because Cohen writes about what happened and what could have happened―if Washington had chosen alternative foreign policies in its relations with the former Soviet Union and Russia. As I argued in Surviving the Millennium, this kind of approach is not “counter-factual” because it explores realistic policy alternatives made at the time that represent the paths not taken.

But sometimes, those alternative paths are actually implemented later in new circumstances, so they are part of the historical record and not “counter” the facts. I believe Cohen is right: The US lost a number of opportunities that…

From Hall's list on the genesis of the “second" Cold War.