Vladislav Zubok, a Russian-born historian at the London School of Economics, provides a comprehensive account of the Soviet Union's dissolution that challenges widespread assumptions about its inevitability. Drawing on newly available archives and interviews with participants, Zubok argues that the USSR did not collapse from internal contradictions or economic failure alone, but was destroyed by the unintended consequences of reforms that Gorbachev himself initiated. The book traces how Gorbachev's political liberalization deprived the Communist Party of its monopoly on power without creating alternative governing institutions, while his economic reforms disrupted the planned economy without creating functional markets. Zubok examines how these reforms empowered nationalist movements in the republics, particularly in the Baltic states and Ukraine, without providing mechanisms to hold the union together. He pays particular attention to the role of Boris Yeltsin, whose rivalry with Gorbachev accelerated the disintegration, and to the August 1991 coup attempt that destroyed what remained of central authority. The book concludes that the Soviet collapse was contingent rather than inevitable, depending on specific decisions by specific individuals. Essential reading for understanding one of the twentieth century's most consequential events and for assessing what the outcome might have been had different choices been made.