Armageddon Averted
Stephen Kotkin, a historian of Russia, tells the story of how the Soviet Union came apart between the 1970s and the early 2000s. His argument is that the collapse was driven less by outside pressure than by the system's own decay and by reformers who tried to save socialism and instead dismantled it. He explains why a superpower armed with thousands of nuclear weapons fell apart with relatively little violence, and why the wreckage left Russia with corruption and weak institutions for years after. The book is short, sharp, and written for readers who want to understand one of the defining events of the twentieth century without wading through a thousand pages.
What you might want to know about Armageddon Averted
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A historian explains how the Soviet Union collapsed without the nuclear catastrophe many feared, and what its messy aftermath left behind.
Yes. Pete Buttigieg included it on his list of ten desert-island books for One Grand Books in 2019.
Armageddon Averted was written by Stephen Kotkin, published in 2001 by Oxford University Press.
Armageddon Averted is 280 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Armageddon Averted takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Armageddon Averted is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
