This book summarizes leadership and general political developments in the Soviet Union since the onset of the reforms. It explores new developments and old continuities in elite politics in the Russian Federation and other post-Soviet states during the period of transition and consolidation.

This book summarizes leadership and general political developments in the Soviet Union since the onset of the reforms. It explores new developments and old continuities in elite politics in the Russian Federation and other post-Soviet states during the period of transition and consolidation.

In this penetrating biography, Timothy J. Colton,one of the English-speaking world's foremost experts on Russia,traces the life and struggles of Russia's first popularly elected president, Boris Yeltsin. Colton vividly narrates the life of a man who rose from agrarian roots to forge a new destiny for Russia and whose attempt at bringing democracy to his countrymen remains one of the great unfinished stories of our time. Yeltsin provides a refreshing portrait of this controversial yet critical leader who buried the Soviet Union and birthed its troubled heir.