A Times [ UK] Book of the Year 2015 "The denouement is well known and well told in pointillist detail... [ an] admirably even-handed account, which offers a compendium of the expired secrets of the White House and Kremlin." --Wall Street Journal "The End of the Cold War [ is] a massive new study of the last days of the Soviet empire... British historian Robert Service examines newly released Politburo minutes, recently available unpublished diaries, and minutely detailed negotiation records." --Boston Globe "The End of the Cold War, 1985-1991 [ is] a detailed, authoritative, and illuminating account of the end of the competition that defined world politics for more than four decades." --Christian Science Monitor "The End of the Cold War: 1985-1991 serves as a reminder that the hawks' memory of Reagan's Soviet diplomacy is selective and, ultimately, just plain inaccurate...Service succeed[ s] in giving the reader a comprehensive account of the meetings and debates in the years leading up to the Soviet collapse." --Washington Post "Service takes the vast literature on the Cold War's end, adds newly available archival sources, and pulls it all together into a single massive history of how 'Washington and Moscow achieved their improbable peace.' ... To cover as many elements as Service does requires very tight writing, even in a big book such as this one: as a result, he settles for sentences rather than paragraphs to cover the necessary ground." --Foreign Affairs "The great nonfiction book of the year... As a serious and fascinating dive into the events that shaped our world it cannot be bettered." --Justin Webb, The Times [ UK] "Authoritative and scholarly... The End of the Cold War gets all the big questions right. The world was fortunate to have leaders who brought a half-century nightmare to a peaceful conclusion, and his readers will be grateful for Robert Service's clear explanation of how and why it happened." --Claremont Review of Books "[ Robert] Service's book is a great investigative achievement...[ he] has given us an account, unsurpassable in its detail..." --Bookforum "A riveting read." --The Telegraph (UK) "In this authoritative and deeply informed political and diplomatic history, Service (Trotsky), a seasoned British historian specializing in studies of Soviet Russia, delivers a masterful account of the final years of the Cold War, when a small, remarkable group of statesmen sought an end to the dangerous standoff between superpowers. ... scholarly yet accessible: detailed, expansive, and engaging." --Publishers Weekly, STARRED "[ A] thoughtful re-evaluation of a stunning historical watershed... A wholly satisfying, likely definitive, but not triumphalist account of the end of an era." --Kirkus Reviews, STARRED "Recommended for political scientists, historians, Cold Warriors, and those who value diplomacy." --Library Journal, STARRED
