Mikhail Gorbachev, secretary general of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991, now heads the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow and lectures widely around the world. His most recent book is Gorbachev: On My Country and the World. The late Zdenek Mlynar (1931-1997) was a leader of the Prague Spring of 1968 and a prominent member of the Czech dissident movement. His son, Vladimir, is the current minister without portfolio of the Czech Republic.

An extraordinary transcription (and translation) of three blunt and probing conversations during the early 1990s between two old friends. Booklist A significant historical document... Journal of Democracy A timely and important book... An unusually candid and revealing dialogue between Gorbachev and Zdenek Mlynar. -- Robert D. English The Nation Gorbachev adds enough beyond what he has already written to offer valuable insight to his intellectual evolution, down to and including his conception of socialism. Foreign Affairs This books reminds us of [Gorbachev's] accidental greatness and his greatness of character... It reveals an argumentative, insightful and tenacious political frienship which did not end in betrayal. -- John Lloyd Times Literary Supplement

• Conversation One: The Criss-Crossing of Our Paths 1. Student Communists 2. New Hopes and New Disappointments 3. Twenty Years, Divergent Paths Conversation Two: How We Sought to Reinvigorate Socialism 1. the Prague Spring and Its Defeat 2. More Democracy, More Socialism 3. Freedom of Choice Either Exists or It Doesn't 4. An Airplane That Took Off Without Knowing Where to Land 5. What to Do With the Party? 6. Can the Use of Force "Save Socialism"? Conversation Three: There's Only One World 1. Breaking Out of the Dead End of the Cold War 2. Socialism Is Alive as a World Process 3. At a Crossroads of Civilization Concluding Thoughts: The Conscience of the Reformer

Mikhail Gorbachev, secretary general of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991, now heads the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow and lectures widely around the world. His most recent book is Gorbachev: On My Country and the World. The late Zdenek Mlynar (1931-1997) was a leader of the Prague Spring of 1968 and a prominent member of the Czech dissident movement. His son, Vladimir, is the current minister without portfolio of the Czech Republic.

An extraordinary transcription (and translation) of three blunt and probing conversations during the early 1990s between two old friends. Booklist A significant historical document... Journal of Democracy A timely and important book... An unusually candid and revealing dialogue between Gorbachev and Zdenek Mlynar. -- Robert D. English The Nation Gorbachev adds enough beyond what he has already written to offer valuable insight to his intellectual evolution, down to and including his conception of socialism. Foreign Affairs This books reminds us of [Gorbachev's] accidental greatness and his greatness of character... It reveals an argumentative, insightful and tenacious political frienship which did not end in betrayal. -- John Lloyd Times Literary Supplement

• Conversation One: The Criss-Crossing of Our Paths 1. Student Communists 2. New Hopes and New Disappointments 3. Twenty Years, Divergent Paths Conversation Two: How We Sought to Reinvigorate Socialism 1. the Prague Spring and Its Defeat 2. More Democracy, More Socialism 3. Freedom of Choice Either Exists or It Doesn't 4. An Airplane That Took Off Without Knowing Where to Land 5. What to Do With the Party? 6. Can the Use of Force "Save Socialism"? Conversation Three: There's Only One World 1. Breaking Out of the Dead End of the Cold War 2. Socialism Is Alive as a World Process 3. At a Crossroads of Civilization Concluding Thoughts: The Conscience of the Reformer