Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0192880527, Paperback)

In the West, Mikhail Gorbachev is revered as a historic leader who ended the Cold War. In Russia, he is largely despised. Archie Brown, a professor of politics at Oxford and one of the first to recognize the significance of Gorbachev's rise to power in the former Soviet Union, has produced the most thorough biography to date--a meticulously written defense of Gorbachev's historic role as the last Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. While not neglecting to note the man's mistakes and his flaws--chiefly his vanity and inconsistency--The Gorbachev Factor is a very positive portrait of a man who changed the world.