Rating: 
Summary: Soviet Special K
Review: Krushchev has been a mystery to us as to how he gained and lost power in the Soviet Union. This book allows the reader to enter into the day-to-day existance of a ruler in an oppressed society. The book shows Special K as sometimes a buffoon, a simple peasant/worker but in reality a coniver and plotter. To me it felt that the author tried to portray Khrushchev as a sympathetic character but, he was a man that willingly participated in the murder of thousands upon thousands of innocents.
The author does well in potraying and explaining Special K to us through the use of such source as his son however, I did not feel he went deep enough into what he was really like. I temper this with the fact that we are gaining access into teh secret aschives and more information is always forthcoming so I find this book helpful. Hence, I can only give a four star rating.
Rating: 
Summary: Remarkable book about a complex man
Review: Nikita Khrushchev was an enigma, a contradiction, and a study in contrasts. He could be shrewd and calculating, and he could also be ignorant and shortsighted. He could be rude, bombastic and thoroughly insulting, and he could also be self-deprecating and sentimental. These traits are held by lots of people, no doubt, but they became highly relevant in the 1950s and 60s as Khrushchev led the Soviet Union in a series of events on the world stage that were often dramatic and, sometimes, potentially cataclysmic.
Author William Taubman brings the reader close to the true character that was N. Khrushchev. We get detailed insights into his upbringing and youth, and his peasant origins. Later, Taubman describes the stressful and ambivalent relationship that Khrushchev had with his predecessor, Joseph Stalin. The intrigues that surrounded the leadership transition from the latter to the former are one of the more fascinating parts of the book.
I highly recommend this work, which at times almost serves as a transcript of countless top-level meetings that involved Khrushchev, so plentiful are the direct quotations of the key players. The reader cannot help but feel close to the personalities, making the history of this troubled country, in those tumultuous times, very much alive.
The amazing thing that I learned from this book is just how informal and haphazard the running of the USSR was under Khrushchev. Policy was often formulated at a whim. Khrushchev would rant and rave about conditions in his country, make pronouncements accordingly as to how things should be managed, and his underlings would obediently carry out his wishes, seldom challenging or questioning him. Really, it is amazing that the USSR functioned as well as it did in the 1950's and 60's, given how few people there were "at the top" who actually thought through what was right for the country and its people.
Taubman provides wonderful detail on the relationships Khrushchev had, or tried to have, with Stalin, Mao Zedong, Castro, and US presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Khrushchev often used "bluff and bluster" with these men as a way of compensating for his lack of sophistication and formal education, of which he was all too often very conscious. For example, Mao got under Khrushchev's skin on a couple of occasions by swimming proficiently when he and the aquatically-challenged Khrushchev got took time out from meetings.
I never expected to laugh as much as I did when I set out to read this book. There are dozens of passages that reveal the baseness and profanity that Khrushchev was capable of dishing out, often as not while abroad, in the company of leaders and dignitaries. Khrushchev's shoe-banging at the UN was just one example of his unpredictable, wild behaviour that typically left his entire audience embarrassed and looking for a place to hide.
This book is well written, well researched, in all a smooth read despite its 650-page length. I also recommend Gulag, by Anne Applebaum, and The Fall of Berlin, by Antony Beevor, both of which shed light on the period prior to and in the early days of Khrushchev's influence on the USSR and the world.
Rating:
Summary: An Informative and Readable Biography
Review: Not including the notes this is a 651 page biography on the former Russian leader. I was somewhat intimidated by the size of the book, but since my knowledge of the man is limited to what I remember of him during the 1950's and early '60's I decided to give the book a try. I was plesantly surprised to find the book to be very readable and interesting. Khrushchev comes across as a man from humble origins with a very limited education. Perhaps this helps to explain his bluster and bravado in dealing with other individuals to cover up his insecurities. He denounced Stalin following the dictator's death in 1953 even though Khrushchev himself was responsible along with others for the death of numerous individuals during the Soviet purges. I found paranoia to reign supreme among Khrushchev and other party leaders as they back-stabbed one another due to envy and fear. With the election of John Kennedy to the United States presidency in 1960 Khrushchev resorted to his usual attempt to browbeat another, and tried to take advantage of Kennedy's inexperience by smuggling missles into Cuba. Kennedy stood up to the Russian leader's bluster, and Khrushchev backed down. While Khrushchev claimed victory back home, in reality, others in Russia knew better. Russia's bullying tactics had failed. Cuban dictator Fidel Castro had harsh words for Khrushchev for not standing up to the United States. Khrushchev's behavior could be gross and embarrassing to others in social situations in addition to those well-known tactics he engaged in at the United Nations. After being forced out of office in 1964 Khrushchev didn't adapt well to retirement. His friends, if he had any among party leaders, didn't have anything to do with him. He did some reading and fishing, but it was walking and gardening that he enjoyed the most. It must have been a shock to have too much to do to not having enough to do. The Russian leader died of heart failure in 1971 at the age of 78. I would suggest reading about 50-75 pages at a time. The book is long, but it is well rewarding.
Rating:
Summary: It deserves the Pulitzer it recently won.
Review: One of the less commented upon consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union--an event that, in many ways, Nikita Khruschev set in motion--is the access into Russian documents and society the event has provided to historians trying to understand and document various aspects of the Soviet Communist experience. It is unlikely a book such as this could ever have been written before the collapse. One can only hope many more like it are in the offing.Using access to documentation about and personalities surrounding Khruschev, Professor Taubman has written what will surely stand as the definitive Khruschev biography for a long time to come. Professor Taubman has vividly captured the essence of Khruschev-the insecure bombastic and idiosyncratic nature of this truly unique historical figure who owed both his rise as well as his fall to his love-hate relationship with Stalin, the man who he supported wholeheartedly and then denounced and debunked. The boo does a marvelous job of providing an insight into the truly ethnic Russian aspects of Khruschev's personality and behavior-his passions, his profanity, his impulsiveness-aspects that at once render him all too human in both genuinely sympathetic and concomitantly repulsive ways. Khrushchev represents an intermediary between the cult-of-personality communism of Lenin and Stalin and the more corporate, politburo oriented communism of the Brezhnev/Andropov era. Professor Taubman also provides clear-cut and insightful analysis of Khrushchev's role in this area as well. Moreover, all of this is deftly presented within the context of the wider Soviet and international political events of the times. Well written and very well paced for a genuinely scholarly historical work. This is one of the best biographies I have read in many, many years. A brilliant effort.
Rating:
Summary: Temperamentally Unsuited to Lead a Great Nation
Review: Taubman's biography of Khrushchev is immensely readable, emphasizing the personal aspects of the dictator's life. It is the portrait of a man temperamentally unsuited to lead a great nation. Nevertheless, Khrushchev emerges as more human than the other dictators during the Soviet experiement, and most readers are likely to feel a grudging affection toward him.
Taubman begins with a quick summary of Khrushchev's childhood and quick rise in the Communist Party apparatus under Stalin. Seemingly unambitious, often to the point of evading promotion, Khrushchev thrived and survived during the worst of the Stalin era. After Stalin's death, Khrushchev adeptly asserted himself over supposedly stronger rivals to wield primary power by 1956.
Taubman doesn't give a complete, detailed account of Soviet domestic and foreign policy during the Khrushchev era, but concentrates instead on several key events: The Secret Speech, the Invasion of Hungary, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. There is also a fairly detailed account of Khrushchev's troubled and ambivalent relationship with artists and intellectuals, which reveals him at his worst, often devoid of elementary self-control.
Despite his blustering threats and personal vulgarity, Khrushchev was in many respects admirable and likeable, and it is hard to read of his ouster and lonely retirement without sympathy.
In Taubman's account Khrushchev suffered from an inferiority complex based on his lack of education and culture. I'd like to suggest an additional explanation for his intemperate behavior. I believe Taubman's biography shows Khrushchev as a basically decent man who wanted the party and government to which he'd dedicated his life to succeed. Not a cynical careerist like most of his colleagues, Khrushchev may have been stricken more by doubt about the system he represented than about his own capabilities.
Rating: 
Summary: Perhaps a wonderful book for professors, but not for the avg
Review: Taubman's work goes into great detail about the life and times of Khrushchev, however Taubman is writing to his fellow professors and not to the general public, which detracts from the work's value to the average reader. The text is drawn out and quite boring with little life or enthusiasm to add to Khrushchev's incredible times and remarkable achievements in climbing to the top of the soviet hierarchy while manipulating all those around him who thought him to be an ignorant peasant.
After attempting to complete this book several times yet failing in each attempt, I attributed my inability to make it past 20 pages without falling asleep to my long hours at work. However, after picking up Edmund Morris' Theodore Rex and devouring it in short order, I determined what was wrong. Taubman is so caught up in the exact details, and writes in a style that adds zero life to the text that one can not help but be bored unless you are preparing for a final or history class and are assigned the reading. This is the type of history text that most American's hate, if you can make it through this than you are a better reader than I, as well as the general public from what I can determine. I am not trying to take away from the work itself, for those of you who are inclined to read from this perspective and can, please do so. But I believe that Joseph Ellis summed the problem up after writing "Founding Brothers"; the issue with most history texts is that the authors are writing to each other and not the general public. If one can write to both, maintaining the facts, yet telling a compelling story about the times, and the lives of the principal characters that also maintains interest for the casual reader of history and the professor than why not do so.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent biography of an interesting personality
Review: This book tells the story of Nikita Khrushchev's rise in the world of Communist Russia and paints a picture of a man dedicated to the principles that Stalin espoused. By his willingness to not only condone but help bring about the liquidation of whomever Stalin considered an enemy, the ruthless side of his personality is shown.
But that is only part of the story. He was also a man capable of communicating with fellow party workers and peasants, and by his denouncing of Stalin after Stalin's death in 1953, laid the cornerstone of peristroika that led to the crumbling of the Soviet empire in the 1980's.
By overcoming a minimal education by hard work and the force of his personality, he rose to be the leader of the Soviet Union. This is an excellent book about an interesting personality of history. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A truly great book.
Review: This is one of the best biographies I have ever read. It is beautifully researched and written. It really is more than just a biography of Kruschev but a history of Russia from the 1920's to the 1960's, as well as of the Cold War. The depiction of Kremlin infighting, as well as the portrait if provides of Stalin, are first-rate. You will not regret reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic...Fantastic
Review: This is one of the best written biographies I have read. With so much action going on in this book who needs Fiction. In terms of a historical biography it gives a clear insight into the workings of Khruschev. It looks at his strength and his weaknesses. It covers so much ground and so well that I think this book is an indispensible guide to Cold War, how it came about and how it was played out. It also offers a great insight into the workings of the USSR and the beginning of its end. But above all it offers a look into one of the most complicated man in history.
Rating:
Summary: Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
Review: This is the first scholarly biography of Khrushchev. Generally, if Taubman (political science, Amherst College) errs, he errs on the side of kindness towards his subject. Although nothing is hidden, the sharp edges of this controversial and at times brutal man are smoothed off. Taubman shows that Khrushchev was as capable of knifing an opponent as was Stalin himself. Otherwise, he would not have ended up by the side of the dictator's deathbed in 1953. Stalin's brutal regime allowed Khrushchev to rise from humble beginnings, with limited education, to the top of world power. Yet, once he reached the pinnacle as ruler of Russia from 1956 to 1964, he more than anybody else was responsible for the collapse of the system that created him. Taubman sees Khrushchev as a gatekeeper of a historical epoch, with one foot in the bloody Soviet revolution and the other in the perestroika of Gorbachev. The study is an exemplar of scholarship, with an extensive bibliography and index. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. For all public and college libraries.
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