SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY, 1917-1991
A RETROSPECTIVE

Edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky

This volume represents one of the first retrospective deliberations by leading Western and Russian scholars on the crucial issues regarding the Soviet Union's relations with the West. The disintegration of the USSR and the subsequent emergence of a new Russia has destroyed many of the barriers to understanding Soviet Russia. It has given historians on both sides an opportunity to shed their political biases and to make use of archival materials which were inaccessible until now. The resulting re-evaluation places Soviet foreign policy in sharper focus, destroying obsolete myths about totalitarian models. The research contained in Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1991: A Retrospective, which is based on a sudden proliferation of source s, accentuates the complexity of the decision-making process. It reveals the neglected importance of personal initiative, animating prominent diplomats such as Litvinov, Molotov, Rakovsky, Maisky, Krestinsky and Ioffe. Attention is also devoted to the role of domestic factors such as national and ethnic conflict in the conduct of foreign policy. Finally, several practitioners offer insights into policy formulation, describing German unification and the 1991 Gulf Crisis from an insider's perspective. All students of Soviet foreign policy and international affairs in the 20th century will find this book to be an invaluable resource.

CONTRIBUTORS: Carole Fink * Richard K. Debo * Gabriel Gorodetsky * Francis Conte * Jonathan Haslam * Teddy J. Uldricks * Lev Bezymensky * Anita J. Prazmowska * Aleksei Filitov * Mikhail Narinsky * Martin Kitchen * Bruce R. Kuniholm * Yaacov Ro'i * Anatolii Cherniaev * Vyacheslav Dashichev * Alexander Tchoubarian * Igor Lebedev * Viktor Kuvaldin * Carol R. Saivetz * Alexander Dallin

...essential reading for both scholars and students
The International History Review