On Christmas Day, 1991, President George H.W. Bush addressed the nation to celebrate what he described as a historic American victory: Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation as the first and last Soviet president and the subsequent fall of the Soviet Union. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the triumph of democratic values over communism, took center stage in American public discourse and has persisted for decades -- with disastrous consequences for American standing in the world. As historian Serhii Plokhy reveals in The Last Empire, the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the United States. Bush, in fact, was firmly committed to supporting Gorbachev as he attempted to hold together the USSR in the face of growing independence movements in its republics. Drawing on recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, Plokhy presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union's final months, providing invaluable insight into the origins of the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the outset of the most dangerous crisis in East-West relations since the end of the Cold War.

The last summit. Meeting in Moscow ; The party crasher ; Chicken Kiev -- The tanks of August. The prisoner of the Crimea ; The Russian rebel ; Freedom's victory -- A countercoup. The resurgence of Russia ; Independent Ukraine ; Saving the empire -- Soviet disunion. Washington's dilemma ; The Russian ark ; The survivor -- Vox populi. Anticipation ; The Ukrainian referendum ; The Slavic trinity -- Farewell to the empire. Out of the woods ; The birth of Eurasia ; Christmas in Moscow.