Product Description

William Taubman's brilliant biography of one of the key figures of the Soviet Union is a study in contrasts - how the boy from a peasant background rose to the heights of power; how a single-minded, ambitious political player survived twenty years under Stalin; how he opened up to the West after Stalin's death and yet brought the world close to oblivion in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Hugely acclaimed on hardback publication, and winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, this is a magisterial work of political biography and a riveting insight into one of the giants of twentieth-century history. It is likely to remain the standard work for years to come.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #206190 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 896 pages

About the Author
William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. In addition to having spent fifteen years researching this volume, Taubman is the author of STALIN'S AMERICAN POLICY (1982) and MOSCOW SPRING (1989).

Customer Reviews

Superb, a human portrait of a contradictory leader
This book is so readable that one barely notices as the 650-odd pages go by. While it is an excellent narrative account there are clear themes within so that it does not feel like just one thing after another. Taubman also, uses another technique that works well, by analysing the outcome of a narrative before recounting the detail. In fact, the whole book starts with Khrushchev's own downfall! This does not spoil in any way the reading experience but helps one to retain the facts by giving a higher priority and structure to their meaning.

The author's use of quotes is masterly and almost gives the reader a feeling of being an eye-witness to the events. After reading Taubman's Khrushchev, one can no longer view that period of Soviet history after Stalin as a rather murky, grey haze.

Taubman is damning of Khrushchev's weaknesses (his lack of education, arrogance, self-centredness, impulsiveness, foul-mouthed bad-temperedness and cruelty, to name but a few), being so merciless that it is hard to see how the biographer can remain, in any way, sympathetic toward his subject. But what Taubman is really doing here is exposing Khrushchev's very humanity to the reader, a humanity that is full of contradictions and vulnerabilities. He can ridicule Soviet writers and artists, who have flowered under his own de-Stalinisation programme, with one breath, then later regret his mistake and apologise. This very humanity makes Khrushchev, as a personality, both appealing to the reader and contrasts starkly with his grey contemporaries in the rest of the Soviet elite. Indeed, even Khrushchev declares that if he had nothing left but to beg on the streets of Moscow, he would, at least, get enough to live on, while his fellow bureaucrats, in the same position, would likely get nothing!

Overall, Taubman credits Khrushchev with taking the risk of denouncing Stalin, and by doing so, paving the way to the future freedom of the Soviet people from tyranny. Unfortunately, for Khrushchev, this came far too late to save himself from less-reconstructed Stalinists like Leonid Brezhnev.

He was eventually toppled in a Politburo palace coup and the dark waves of Stalinism closed over his head, and those of the Soviet people, and stayed there, with a vengeance, for another generation. In the meantime, Khrushchev became, officially, a `non-person' as the soviet system could only tolerate the grey! The last part of the book is particularly moving - so don't by any means give up once he falls from power! It recounts the final, sad years of Khrushchev's life with immense sensitivity.

A great biography should always leave one feeling sad that it's finished and with a tear in one's eye for its subject. This one certainly did that for me.

Mediocre biography of Khrushchev
William Taubman's biography of N.S. Khrushchev won the American prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for best biography. Although the book is very in-depth and extensive, it is not clear why, since the overall result is far less than outstanding.

The main flaws of the book are its overuse of pop psychology, which seems to come from the interpretation of the writer himself rather than from any established source (although he claims to have consulted with "experts" in this field), which does nothing to enhance our understanding of Khrushchev and his motives, and most of which are arbitrary and subjective opinions of the author. This applies especially to the parts which cover Khrushchev's period in power. The second, and biggest, flaw is the insipid and annoying editorial line employed by Taubman, one of the most vulgar anti-socialist sort and not in the slightest informative or interesting. I do not see the point of writing a book about a leader and major figure in the Soviet Union, a bulwark of Communism, when you are so anti-communist you feel compelled to tell the reader this every other sentence or so. This goes all the more since Taubman's interrupting objections consist of useless comments along the lines of "we all know that human nature is against socialism though" or "he ought to have finally recognized his system was a failure" etc. These are not interpretations or context-giving statements that help one understand Khrushchev, but are only political opinions inserted by Taubman, and silly ones at that. If Taubman wants to expatiate on his political views, he should write an essay book on the topic or somesuch.

The obvious merits of this biography, on the other hand, are its scope (with some 650 pages plus over 100 pages of notes), and the structure of the biography. Taubman uses, apart from the introductory chapter, the chronological method, but is very systematic and leaves nothing out, while at the same time keeping a good grasp on all the material. This allows the reader to get a large amount of information on Khrushchev, both in his political and his personal life, at any stage of the proceedings. Despite the pop psychology interruptions and politicking by Taubman, the descriptions of Khrushchev's decision-making in power are fairly thorough and shed a clear light on how many famous Cold War events looked from the Soviet side. It is also pleasant that Taubman does not, as some authors have done, focus excessively on the foreign policy side, but instead pays all the necessary attention to his reforms (and wavering in them).

Although Taubman has a strong tendency to want to discredit Khrushchev and underestimate his competence, partly because Khrushchev himself was rather insecure about himself, he does manage (perhaps against his intent) to make Khrushchev sympathetic and understandable to the reader. Taubman also involves the various other leaders of the USSR, the intelligentsia, officials etc. with whom Khrushchev interacted often into the story, which gives a bare amount of context for his decisions and policies and how they were received, although there could have been much more on this. Because of this, and the large amount of useful information contained in this vast biography, "Khrushchev: The Man and His Era" cannot be considered a failure. But Taubman's editorializing plus his psychologizing, individualist interpretation of historical events make it certainly not worth awarding prizes to either.

He's off Stalin's Christmas card list!
When I was growing up in the late 50s/early 60s Khrushchev was the West's bogey man. I remember my father being distinctly anxious at the time of the Cuban missile crisis; I only wish he had lived to read this book and all the astonishing details of our man's most famous piece of blunder and bluster.

I am no expert on Soviet history and this is a big, thick tome, but I found it absorbing from the start. Had it been even longer I wouldn't have minded a bit. Hard to believe maybe, this is a real page turner. Taubman knows his subject alright, and proceeds to tell the story in a gripping, lucid, moving and often funny way. He doesn't shy away from the horrific contradictions in Khrushchev's character either, yet still weighs in with a gloriously rounded portrait.

You will think I exaggerate when I describe this as a racy read, but if you have the slightest interest in the Soviet Union please give it a try. It is thoroughly well researched, like all good history, yet wonderfully accessible. My only complaints: a couple of maps wouldn't have gone amiss; and, a dramatis personae would be useful in keeping a track of who's who. These are minor gripes, mind you. All in all, this is a brilliant, model biography.