{"product_id":"2026100009797-secondhand-the-long-road-to-freedom-russia-and-glasnost","title":"The Long Road To Freedom: Russia And Glasnost","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Fair\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Worn\/faded, no tears\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003cbr\u003eMarkings: Ex-library with usual markings\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: Internally sound - fair lib copy. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the heart of one of the twentieth century's most dramatic political transformations, The Long Road to Freedom: Russia and Glasnost presents a penetrating analysis of the Soviet Union's turbulent passage through Mikhail Gorbachev's era of openness, tracing the deep historical currents that both propelled and constrained the promise of reform. Walter Laqueur chronicles the contradictions embedded within glasnost — the state-sanctioned loosening of censorship and public discourse — and interrogates whether this celebrated thaw represented a genuine rupture with the Soviet past or merely a tactical recalibration by an empire under pressure. He situates the policy within Russia's long and fractured relationship with liberty, drawing on centuries of autocratic tradition to illuminate why freedom, even when officially permitted, remained so profoundly difficult to grasp.\n\nA distinguished historian and political analyst, Laqueur brings formidable scholarly authority to bear on questions that were, at the time of writing, reshaping the global order. His prose is measured yet urgent, combining rigorous archival sensibility with an acute awareness of the ideological fault lines running through Soviet society, from the intelligentsia to the provincial bureaucrat. The Long Road to Freedom stands as an indispensable document of its moment — a work that asks whether a system built on the suppression of truth can ever truly learn to speak it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49203285295323,"sku":"2026100009797-SECONDHAND","price":12.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/6359a0b0-3595-4924-a2c0-d6647280c41b.png?v=1788147563","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100009797-secondhand-the-long-road-to-freedom-russia-and-glasnost","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}