This timely and pathbreaking work shows how and why the dramatic collapse of the soviet Union was caused in large part by nationalism, that is, by the increasingly urgent demands of the subject nationalities of the Soviet Union for independence and autonomy.
"This is a briliant tour-de-force analysis of the history of ethnopolitics in the tsarist and Soviet empires. Students and scholars alike will welcome the succinct outline of state policies, social processes, and focal events forming the identities of groups and nations. . . . A very important and useful book . . . more durable than other recent publications dealing with the ethnic dimension of the Soviet collapse."--Slavic Review
"Here is the book of choice if one wants a succinct treatment of nationalism past and present in the former Soviet Union."--Foreign Affairs
