Using an impressive variety of primary sources, including interviews, memoirs, newspapers, and archival documents in Russian and Tajik, Scarborough conducts a detailed investigation of the last years of the USSR in Tajikistan and the reasons for the Tajik Civil War (1992–97)...These insights help readers better assess post-Soviet conflicts and call for researchers to conduct more comparative work.(Choice) Scarborough's approach is as unconventional as it is impressive...a thrilling and unsettling read.(H-Soz-Kult) Lucidly and engagingly written, with short, exciting chapters that almost make it into a novel. A tremendously important book.(Europe Now) An immersive and insightful scholarly work...exemplifies the exceptional breadth and depth of the author's research.(Ab Imperio) Moscow's Heavy Shadow is a major accomplishment that not only illuminates the origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan but sheds new light on the complex ways that Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms played out throughout the USSR.(The Russian Review)

Using an impressive variety of primary sources, including interviews, memoirs, newspapers, and archival documents in Russian and Tajik, Scarborough conducts a detailed investigation of the last years of the USSR in Tajikistan and the reasons for the Tajik Civil War (1992–97)...These insights help readers better assess post-Soviet conflicts and call for researchers to conduct more comparative work.(Choice) Scarborough's approach is as unconventional as it is impressive...a thrilling and unsettling read.(H-Soz-Kult) Lucidly and engagingly written, with short, exciting chapters that almost make it into a novel. A tremendously important book.(Europe Now) An immersive and insightful scholarly work...exemplifies the exceptional breadth and depth of the author's research.(Ab Imperio) Moscow's Heavy Shadow is a major accomplishment that not only illuminates the origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan but sheds new light on the complex ways that Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms played out throughout the USSR.(The Russian Review)

Using an impressive variety of primary sources, including interviews, memoirs, newspapers, and archival documents in Russian and Tajik, Scarborough conducts a detailed investigation of the last years of the USSR in Tajikistan and the reasons for the Tajik Civil War (1992–97)...These insights help readers better assess post-Soviet conflicts and call for researchers to conduct more comparative work.(Choice) Scarborough's approach is as unconventional as it is impressive...a thrilling and unsettling read.(H-Soz-Kult) Lucidly and engagingly written, with short, exciting chapters that almost make it into a novel. A tremendously important book.(Europe Now) An immersive and insightful scholarly work...exemplifies the exceptional breadth and depth of the author's research.(Ab Imperio) Moscow's Heavy Shadow is a major accomplishment that not only illuminates the origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan but sheds new light on the complex ways that Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms played out throughout the USSR.(The Russian Review)