{"product_id":"2026200011951-secondhand-boris-yeltsin-a-political-biography","title":"Boris Yeltsin: A Political Biography","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Very good\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFew figures in modern history have embodied both the promise and the peril of democratic transformation quite like Boris Yeltsin, and Boris Yeltsin: A Political Biography chronicles his extraordinary rise from a rough-hewn provincial party boss to the first freely elected president of Russia with the authority of two veteran Soviet-era journalists who watched it all unfold firsthand. Vladimir Solovyov and Elena Klepikova, drawing on rare insider access and deep knowledge of the Soviet political machine, present a portrait of a man whose volatile personality, populist instincts, and bulldozing ambition made him simultaneously the gravedigger of the Communist Party and the founding father of post-Soviet Russia.\n\nWritten with the sharp analytical eye of dissident observers who lived under the system they critique, this biography illuminates the grand contradictions at the heart of Yeltsin's career — his courageous defiance of the August 1991 coup plotters set against his authoritarian impulses, his championing of democratic reform alongside his tolerance of rampant corruption. Solovyov and Klepikova argue that Yeltsin was not merely a product of his era but its most dramatic embodiment, a figure whose personal excesses and historic achievements were inseparable. For anyone seeking to understand how the Soviet empire collapsed and what rose in its place, this account raises one haunting question: was Yeltsin Russia's liberator, or merely its most colourful jailer?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49130885316827,"sku":"2026200011951-SECONDHAND","price":15.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/956166ac-c30d-4859-99df-2cc974da18e8.png?v=1786591733","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200011951-secondhand-boris-yeltsin-a-political-biography","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}