WINNER OF THE PUSHKIN HOUSE RUSSIAN BOOK PRIZE 2015 On Christmas Day 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union By the next day the USSR was officially no more & the USA had emerged as the world's sole superpower Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy presents a page-turning account of the preceding five months of drama filled with failed coups d'etat & political intrigue Honing in on this previously disregarded but crucial period & using recently declassified documents & original interviews with key participants he shatters the established myths of 1991 & presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union's final months Plokhy argues that contrary to the triumphalist Western narrative George H W Bush desperately wanted to preserve the Soviet Union & keep Gorbachev in power & that it was Ukraine & not the US that played the key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union The consequences of those five months & the myth-making that has since surrounded them are still being felt in Crimea Russia the US & Europe today With its spellbinding narrative & strikingly fresh perspective The Last Empire is the essential account of one of the most important watershed periods in world history & is indispensable reading for anyone seeking to make sense of international politics today