{"product_id":"the-august-coup-by-robert-service-9781529065787","title":"The August Coup","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom acclaimed historian and author of \u003cem\u003eKremlin Winter\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eBlood on the Snow\u003c\/em\u003e, a dramatic and expertly researched account of an extraordinary moment in Russia's recent history: \u003cem\u003eThe August Coup\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the summer of 1991, a group of eight plotters came together to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachëv, then the president of the USSR. These ruthless conspirators, who occupied positions of high office, declared a state of emergency to restore stability through authoritarian rule. The reality turned out to be a shambolic failure which hastened the fall of the USSR and a pivotal shift from communism to capitalism.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBeginning with a minute-by-minute re-enactment of Gorbachëv's capture in his holiday home in Crimea, Robert Service follows the plot from its inception to its humiliating collapse. The troubling side effects of Gorbachëv's well-meant reforms in the Soviet Union—business fraud, government corruption, organized crime, and interethnic conflict—increased exponentially, and a New Russia was born. Fathered by Boris Yeltsin, it brought lamentably less benefit to the Russian economy or its people than he had promised.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLinking the years from the coup itself to today's Russia under Vladimir Putin, \u003cem\u003eThe August Coup\u003c\/em\u003e is a thoroughly compelling and original chronicle of a moment that changed Russian and global politics for ever.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Macmillan Publishers New Zealand Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47550357307628,"sku":"9781529065787","price":75.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781529065787-the-august-coup.jpg?v=1776802447","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/the-august-coup-by-robert-service-9781529065787","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}