Review excerpt:

Aron draws on immense reading in the archives and the press, and has interviewed numerous Russians, especially those associated with Yeltsin in his early days. He corrects some of the mythical accretions which cling to Yeltsin's career--some of them perpetrated by Yeltsin himself. He manages to be generous to Yeltsin's predecessor and rival, Gorbachev, as well as to Yeltsin himself--a feat of even-handed historical justice not always achieved by those who write about either man.

Sir Roderick Braithwaite was British ambassador to Moscow in 1988-92.