Scott Shane was the Baltimore Sun’s Moscow correspondent from 1988 to 1991. A graduate of Williams College and Oxford University, he also studied at Leningrad State University. He is now a special project reporter for the Sun and lives in Baltimore.

Accessible and absorbing.

• Part 1 Introduction 3Part 2 Before: Information Criminal 9Part 3 Information Control and the Soviet Crisis 43Part 4 What Price Socialism? An Economy Without Information 75Part 5 The KGB, Father of Perestroika 99Part 6 The Press and the Restoration of History 121Part 7 Television and the Revival of PoliticsPart 8 A Normal Country: The Pop Culture Explosion 182Part 9 Letting Go of the Leninist Faith 212Part 10 After: The Coup-Proof Society 245Part 11 Epilogue 276Part 12 Acknowledgments 291Part 13 Notes 293Part 14 Index 305