Perestroika and Soviet-American relations

Library Journal

One might expect this to be a sequel to Gorbachev's Perestroika ( LJ 2/15/88), but it is not. It is a collection of speeches and interviews given by Gorbachev to Western audiences from December 1987 to December 1989. Most, if not all, of these are available elsewhere, though it is perhaps convenient to have them in one volume. Substantively they represent what Gorbachev was saying for Western public consumption between the Reykjavik summit and the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It may be of interest to compare some of these remarks with those in Perestroika , but their relevance to current U.S.-Soviet relations has been superseded by the 28th Party Congress, the collapse of Eastern European Communism, and imminent German reunification. For larger collections only.--Kim Tunnicliff, Albion Coll., Mich.