Gorbachev: The Man and His Era

by William Taubman

Gorbachev: The Man and His Era (2017) is a highly readable biography of Gorbachev by William Taubman, a political scientist (now emeritus) at Amherst College. The book is based partly on the author’s interviews with Gorbachev, and includes nice family photos. Taubman argues that by the standards of leaders—and Soviet leaders in particular—Gorbachev was “a remarkably decent man.” However, Taubman does address the contradictions of Gorbachev’s legacy, admired by some as a great statesman but despised by others for his role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Taubman is an accomplished biographer and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for his biography of Nikita Khrushchev.