While engaging for the general reader thanks to its candid narrative of a life\'s path along an unusual career that took its author to remarkable destinations in Eurasia, this book will be especially welcome to specialists in the history of the Soviet Union/Russia during the last quarter of the 20th century because of its wealth of diary entries constituting two-thirds of the text.
The book also will be useful.
These capture the mindset of the author and his interlocutors at all levels of society.
While engaging for the general reader thanks to its candid narrative of a life\'s path along an unusual career that took its author to remarkable destinations in Eurasia, this book will be especially welcome to specialists in the history of the Soviet Union/Russia during the last quarter of the 20th century because of its wealth of diary entries constituting two-thirds of the text
