Does a system of great powers necessarily imply a struggle for world primacy? Do great states merely hold onto what is theirs, or do they reach for more? Anthony D'Agostino offers a fascinating new answer to these questions through a fundamental reassessment of the international history of the first half of the twentieth century. From the spatial limits of a purely European great power politics the book looks out to the new horizon of world politics. From the time limits of 1914 to 1945 it considers the interface with nineteenth-century imperialism at one end and the impact of the world wars on the Cold War at the other. This is a global retelling of the expansion of Europe coming up against its limits in the most violent conflicts and explosive social movements yet known to history, the two world wars, the Great Depression, and the Russian and Chinese revolutions.

This detailed and scholarly history, based on contemporary and original sources, explains the fall of Soviet Communism by bringing into focus the process of revolution from above. It finds as its cause Gorbachev's relentless political struggle to raise himself above the collective leadership which brought him to power. Gorbachev's Revolution, 1985-91 examines: * the impact of the SDI and other US arms programmes of the early 1980s which provided a stimulus for both Gorbachev's domestic reforms and his arms control initiatives * Perestroika, originally intended to show the world that a new Soviet foreign policy was based on real changes in Soviet society, however, Gorbachev launched its most radical measures in order to get an edge on his Politburo critics * Glasnost, originally meant to be a strictly controlled process furnishing an argument for piecemeal economic reforms This multi-faceted volume provides a wide-ranging and revisionist analysis of this fascinating and influential period in Soviet and international history.

Does a system of great powers necessarily imply a struggle for world primacy? Do great states merely hold onto what is theirs, or do they reach for more? Anthony D'Agostino offers a fascinating new answer to these questions through a fundamental reassessment of the international history of the first half of the twentieth century. From the spatial limits of a purely European great power politics the book looks out to the new horizon of world politics. From the time limits of 1914 to 1945 it considers the interface with nineteenth-century imperialism at one end and the impact of the world wars on the Cold War at the other. This is a global retelling of the expansion of Europe coming up against its limits in the most violent conflicts and explosive social movements yet known to history, the two world wars, the Great Depression, and the Russian and Chinese revolutions.

This book offers a fresh analysis of the Russian Revolution from a global perspective. It stresses the historical role of Soviet Communism in the modernization of the country, the defeat of Nazism, and the rise of American power and world leadership. For students and scholars of the Russian Revolution, there are pivotal questions that merit careful, comprehensive consideration: why did the Tsarist regime unravel in revolution? Why did the Bolsheviks come to power rather than some other party? How did Stalin—rather than a more popular and respected leader—win the mantle of Lenin and gain leadership of the ruling party? How should Stalin's regime be judged by subsequent generations of Russians, and in the context of world history? In Russian Revolution, 1917-1945, author Anthony D'Agostino discusses all these questions. His suggestions for further reading range over decades of writing on Soviet subjects and cite classics, revisionist works, curiosities, and studies done during and since the Gorbachev years. The book explores topics including the modernization of the Tsarist Russian state, World War I, the revolutionary project of Soviet Communism, the nationalist transformation of Soviet Communism under international pressures, the "Big Drive" to modernize Russia by force, and the external threat of fascism.

In the mid-1980s Mikhail Gorbachev's political and economic reforms promised a relaxation of tensions between the U.S.S.R. and the United States without disturbing the basic balance of power in Europe established after the Second World War. Then came the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the vast democratic revolution that swept the Soviet empire, creating a power vacuum east of Berlin. Could such an upheaval have been a natural and logical extension of the course of reform that Gorbachev began plotting in 1985?

Gorbachev's Revolution argues persuasively that the end of Communism was never the goal of the Soviet leader but rather the unintended result of an intense and many-faceted struggle for power. Anthony D'Agostino demonstrates that the pervasive image of stable in-system reform in fact ignored evidence from history. Succession struggles in the U.S.S.R. were generally wars of ideas in which the victors got their way by challenging their opponents' interpretations of the past.

Through political memoirs, newspaper accounts, and historical documents, Gorbachev's Revolution demonstrates once again that revolutionaries change the world not only according to their own designs but also according to the world's designs on them.