Support Us
Five Books
 
Search
MENU MENU
  • Nonfiction
        • NONFICTION BOOKS
        • BEST NONFICTION 2023
        • BEST NONFICTION 2024
        • BEST BIOGRAPHIES
          • Historical Biographies
          • The Best Memoirs and Autobiographies
          • Philosophical Biographies
        • True Crime
        • History Books
          • World War 2
          • World History
          • American History
          • British History
          • Chinese History
          • Russian History
          • Ancient History (up to c. 500 AD)
          • Medieval History
          • Military History
        • Art
          • Art History
        • Travel Books
        • Essays
        • Philosophy Books
          • Ancient Philosophy
          • Contemporary Philosophy
          • Ethics & Moral Philosophy
          • Great Philosophers
          • Social & Political Philosophy
        • Classical Studies
        • Science
          • New Science Books
          • Astronomy
          • Biology
          • Chemistry
          • Maths & Statistics
          • Popular Science
          • Physics Books
        • Nature
        • Environmental Books
          • Climate Change Books
        • Language
          • How to Write
          • English Grammar & Usage
          • Books for Learning Languages
          • Linguistics
        • Politics & Society
          • Political Ideologies
          • Migration
          • War
          • Foreign Policy & International Relations
          • American Politics
          • British Politics
        • Religion
          • Theology
          • Buddhism
          • Christian
          • Islamic
          • Jewish
          • Religious History Books
        • Law
        • Psychology
          • Mental Health
          • Neuroscience
          • Self Help
          • Child Psychology
        • Music & Drama
          • Film & Cinema
          • Opera & Classical Music
        • Economics Books
          • Behavioural Economics
          • Development Economics
          • Economic History
          • Finance
          • Financial Crisis
          • World Economies
        • Business Books
          • Investing Books
        • Technology
          • Artificial Intelligence/AI Books
          • Data Science Books
          • Computing
        • Health & Lifestyle
          • Happiness
          • Sex & Sexuality
          • Death & Dying
          • Education
        • Food & Cooking
        • Sports, Games & Hobbies
  • Fiction & Literature
        • FICTION BOOKS
        • BEST NOVELS 2024
        • BEST FICTION 2023
        • Contemporary Fiction
          • New Literary Fiction
        • World Literature
        • Literary Criticism
        • Literary Figures
        • Classic English Literature
        • American Literature
        • Poetry
        • The Best Memoirs and Autobiographies
        • Comics & Graphic Novels
        • Fairy Tales & Mythology
        • Historical Fiction
        • Horror
        • Humour
        • Crime Novels
        • Science Fiction
        • Short Stories
        • Romance
        • Thrillers
        • Mystery
        • Fantasy
  • World
        • Africa
          • Egypt
          • Ghana
          • Nigeria
          • Rwanda
          • South Africa
          • Zimbabwe
        • Americas
          • Latin America
            • Argentina
            • Brazil
            • Caribbean
            • Chile
            • Cuba
            • Mexico
          • United States
          • Canada
        • Arctic & Antarctica
        • Asia
          • Afghanistan
          • Bangladesh
          • Myanmar (Formerly Burma)
          • China
          • India
          • Japan
          • Kazakhstan
          • Korea
          • Pakistan
          • Sri Lanka
          • Singapore
          • Vietnam
        • Australia
        • Europe
          • Azerbaijan
          • Belgium
          • Britain
          • France
          • Georgia
          • Germany
          • Greece
          • Ireland
          • Italy
          • Netherlands
          • Norway
          • Russia
          • Spain
          • Ukraine
        • Middle East
          • Iran
          • Iraq
          • Israel
          • Palestine
          • Syria
          • Turkey
          • Yemen
  • Kids
        • Kids Recommend Books for Kids
        • High School Teachers Recommendations
        • Prizewinning Kids' Books
        • Popular Series Books for Kids
        • BEST BOOKS FOR KIDS (ALL AGES)
        • Books for Toddlers and Babies
        • Books for Preschoolers
        • Books for 6-8 Year Olds
        • Books for 9-12 Year Olds
        • Books for Teens and Young Adults
        • THE BEST SCIENCE BOOKS FOR KIDS
        • BEST KIDS' BOOKS OF 2024
        • BEST BOOKS FOR TEENS OF 2024
        • Best Audiobooks for Kids
        • History
        • Economics
        • Environment
        • Mental Health
  • Best Books of 2024
        • Best Books for Teens of 2024
        • Best Kids' Books of 2024
        • Best Novels of 2024
          • Historical Fiction
          • Science Fiction
          • Fantasy
          • Mystery & Crime
          • Romance
        • Best Nonfiction of 2024
          • Travel Writing
  • New Books
    • NEW BOOKS
    • New History Books
    • New Literary Fiction
    • New Historical Fiction
    • New Biography
    • New Memoirs
    • New World Literature
    • New Economics Books
    • New Climate Books
    • New Math Books
    • New Science Books
    • New Philosophy Books
    • New Psychology Books
    • New Physics Books
  • Audiobooks
    • THE BEST AUDIOBOOKS
    • Actors Read Great Books
    • Best Audiobooks for Kids
    • Books Narrated by Their Authors
    • Best Audiobook Thrillers
    • Best History Audiobooks
  • Book Awards
    • Nobel Literature Prize
    • Booker Prize (fiction)
    • Baillie Gifford Prize (nonfiction)
    • Financial Times (nonfiction)
    • Wolfson Prize (history)
    • Royal Society (science)
    • NBCC Awards (biography & memoir)
    • Pushkin House Prize (Russia)
    • Walter Scott Prize (historical fiction)
    • Arthur C Clarke Prize (sci fi)
    • The Hugos (sci fi & fantasy)
    • Audie Awards (audiobooks)
    • Wilbur Smith Prize (adventure)
  • Experts

Nonfiction Books » History Books » Historical Figures » Books about Mikhail Gorbachev

Browse book recommendations:

Historical Figures

  • Books about Mikhail Gorbachev

History Books

  • African history
  • American History
  • Ancient History (up to c. 500 AD)
  • British History
  • Chinese History
  • Contemporary History (1945-)
  • Early Modern History (1400-1800)
  • French History
  • German History
  • Historical Figures
  • History of Medicine Books
  • History of Science
  • Latin American History
  • Medieval History
  • Military History
  • Modern History (1800-1945)
  • New History Books
  • Novels Recommended by Historians
  • Popular History
  • Primary Sources
  • Prizewinning History Books
  • Religious History Books
  • Revolutions
  • Russian History
  • World History

Books about Mikhail Gorbachev

Last updated: November 17, 2024

Mikhail Gorbachev, who died in August 2022 at the age of 91, was the final leader of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his role in ending the Cold War.

Born in the village of Privolnoe in southwestern Russia in 1931, Gorbachev's family and village suffered terribly under Stalin. He studied law at Moscow State University and would go on to become the first Soviet leader to have a university degree. His policies of perestroika (more market-focused economic reform), and especially glasnost (greater political openness) would help accelerate the end of the Soviet system after 69 years of Communist Party rule.

Gorbachev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman
Buy now

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.

Read expert recommendations

The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War by Archie Brown
Buy now Listen now

The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War

by Archie Brown

***Winner of the 2021 Pushkin House Book Prize for the best nonfiction writing on Russia***

In the title of this prizewinning 2020 book, Oxford political scientist Archie Brown, a specialist on the Cold War, pays tribute to Gorbachev’s use of the term ‘the human factor’  (or ‘chelovecheskiy faktor’ in Russian) in the developments that led to the end of the conflict. His earlier book devoted to Gorbachev, published in 1996, is The Gorbachev Factor.

Read expert recommendations

Perestroika by Mikhail Gorbachev
Buy now

Perestroika

by Mikhail Gorbachev

Read expert recommendations

“I wanted to pick it is that politicians with really big ideas are still the means by which a huge amount of change in the world is driven. It is fabulous that two Russian words, perestroika and glasnost, entered the global language as a result of one leader, Gorbachev, deciding he wanted to change his country.So this book is an incredibly well argued and interestingly written analysis of what he thought at that time, two years before he became president. He’s driving through domestic change, he’s having meetings with the Americans and other leaders around the world.” Read more...

Alastair Campbell on Leadership

Alastair Campbell, Politician

My Six Years with Gorbachev by Anatoly Chernyaev & trans and ed Robert English and Elizabeth Tucker
Buy now

My Six Years with Gorbachev

by Anatoly Chernyaev & trans and ed Robert English and Elizabeth Tucker

Read expert recommendations

“If you are interested in understanding Gorbachev, this is one way to get into his mind, so to speak: through the diary of one of his closest advisers, who spent six years working with him.” Read more...

The best books on 1989

Mary Elise Sarotte, Political Scientist

Reagan and Gorbachev by Jack Matlock
Buy now

Reagan and Gorbachev

by Jack Matlock

Read expert recommendations

“This book is written by an insider—a participant-observer in the policy process. Reagan and Gorbachev is one of three valuable books Matlock has written since he retired from the government service. Now aged 90, he was a career diplomat who played a significant and very constructive role in the process whereby the Cold War was ended . . . It’s based on a great deal of first-hand knowledge, on the careful records he kept at the time, and on the research he has conducted since leaving government service. While aware of Ronald Reagan’s intellectual shortcomings and blind spots, Matlock takes a highly positive view of him and of the part he played in the Cold War’s ending.” Read more...

The best books on The Cold War

Archie Brown, Historian

Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy
Buy now Listen now

Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy

by Serhii Plokhy

🏆 Winner of the 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, the prizewinning book by Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy, is not a book about Mikhail Gorbachev, but it is about one of the most catastrophic events that happened under his watch, the accident of April 26th, 1986 at a nuclear power plant in Pripyat, now in Ukraine. With his slowness to inform the Soviet people what was going on, Gorbachev does not come out of the events of those months looking particularly good.

Read expert recommendations

“He’s really good here at laying down the background of the disaster itself, the plant’s construction, the days leading up to it, the moments the accident occurred. He talks about the accident itself, the delay in informing the public, the censorship of news, the trial of the nuclear power plant operators who he thinks were treated as scapegoats, and the political outcomes of all this deception.” Read more...

The best books on Chernobyl

Kate Brown, Historian

About

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

Newsletter Contact us Privacy Policy Terms of Service Mastodon Social

© Five Books 2025

Get our newsletter