What do you think?
Rate this book
The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire
For more than 80 years, the Soviet Empire cast an ever-lengthening shadow across the face of the world. Lenin's ruthless legacy consumed Eastern Europe and toppled governments on virtually every continent. Yet at the moment when the Empire appeared to have reached its zenith, it collapsed like a house of cards.
"Brian Crozier's definitive history of the Soviet Empire is a chilling account of an ideology that haunted our century."
— Henry Kissinger
In this seminal work, the eminent British writer and historian Brian Crozier tells the brutal history of the Soviet Empire—its birth, life, and sudden death. The book begins at the beginning, in 1917, when the oversized dreams of Lenin and the happenstance of events conspired to change the course of history. In meticulous detail, Crozier follows the Soviet conquests across Europe and into Asia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere. He uses recently declassified information from Soviet archives to add texture and depth to familiar parts of the story—the betrayal at Yalta, the terror of Stalin, the tragedy of Hungary, the split with China, the false hope of Prague Spring, the rise of Castro, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. Revealed along the way is the dark underside of a regime whose march toward supremacy resulted in the loss of tens of millions of lives. The book concludes with reflections on the extraordinary disintegration of Lenin's utopia and the seemingly endless chaos left in its wake.
Provocative, comprehensive, and majestic in scope, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire is the definitive account of history's most turbulent days.
"Brian Crozier's definitive history of the Soviet Empire is a chilling account of an ideology that haunted our century."
— Henry Kissinger
In this seminal work, the eminent British writer and historian Brian Crozier tells the brutal history of the Soviet Empire—its birth, life, and sudden death. The book begins at the beginning, in 1917, when the oversized dreams of Lenin and the happenstance of events conspired to change the course of history. In meticulous detail, Crozier follows the Soviet conquests across Europe and into Asia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere. He uses recently declassified information from Soviet archives to add texture and depth to familiar parts of the story—the betrayal at Yalta, the terror of Stalin, the tragedy of Hungary, the split with China, the false hope of Prague Spring, the rise of Castro, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. Revealed along the way is the dark underside of a regime whose march toward supremacy resulted in the loss of tens of millions of lives. The book concludes with reflections on the extraordinary disintegration of Lenin's utopia and the seemingly endless chaos left in its wake.
Provocative, comprehensive, and majestic in scope, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire is the definitive account of history's most turbulent days.
848 pages, Hardcover
First published November 3, 1999
15 people are currently reading
130 people want to read
About the author
Brian Crozier
64 books7 followersBrian Rossiter Crozier was a British-based Australian journalist and intelligence expert.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 24, 2018
A wide-ranging and detailed account of the birth of communist Russia, the spread of communism through Soviet corruption and control, and the USSR's ultimate failure, this book really opened my eyes to how expansive the empire really was. It completely changed my understanding of WWII, and indeed, foreign affairs today as a whole. I had no idea communism was the controlling ideology in so many countries, though the fact that it brought misery, starvation and repression to every one of them came as no surprise. The Soviet imprint had a significant imprint how these countries operate today. And since this book was written after Russia released its secret KGB and other government documents in the 1990s, it's the real story of what happened. It corrected the record on a lot of things I learned in college.
The author is an expert on Russia and the Cold War, and has written extensively. He assumes you have a certain level of knowledge and understanding so he can tell the story at the level he needs to tell it. For someone like me, that meant doing a lot of side reading as I went along, so it took me forever to read it. Well worth the effort, though. It confirms what I have recently surmised, that communism didn't die with the Soviet Union, but metastasized and exists as a destructive force today, in many forms, in many countries.
Well worth the time and effort I put into it.
The author is an expert on Russia and the Cold War, and has written extensively. He assumes you have a certain level of knowledge and understanding so he can tell the story at the level he needs to tell it. For someone like me, that meant doing a lot of side reading as I went along, so it took me forever to read it. Well worth the effort, though. It confirms what I have recently surmised, that communism didn't die with the Soviet Union, but metastasized and exists as a destructive force today, in many forms, in many countries.
Well worth the time and effort I put into it.
December 6, 2025
a somewhat biased overview of important events during the Cold War.
Want to read
June 18, 2007Given to me by my father, whom I suspect thinks I've gone soft on Communism.
January 21, 2009
i enjoy history books but honestly read this because it was on my husbands shelf! however, i really did learn a lot and even though it is reallllly long i wanted to finish it.
August 10, 2016
Utterly dry and biased.
January 15, 2016
Thorough. Contains the appropriate level of cataloging data that places this midway between a book to read and a book to use for reference.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews