This is a welcome addition to the body of literature reexamining the Brezhnev era. It portrays an engaged citizenry in dialog with public institutions and a state still capable of innovation from science to foreign affairs.

Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University

Long disregarded as merely an interim and an ‘era of stagnation,’ the Brezhnev years were the second longest period and one of the most consequential times in Soviet history. Its legacies are still evident in Russia today. Reconsidering Stagnation in the Brezhnev Era, which transcends preceding scholarship on those years, is a much needed revisionist book of new information, approaches, and interpretations. Subjects range from high politics, economics, and society to culture, from private lives to public policy, and the collection includes an excellent introductory overview by Dina Fainberg and Artemy Kalinovsky. Reconsidering Stagnation in the Brezhnev Era is an important contribution to our understanding both of Soviet and post-Soviet history.

Stephen F. Cohen, Princeton University and New York University

This rich new literature on the Soviet “stagnation” era’s cultural, social, and political life has gained a renewed relevance as we live through the decline of US exceptionalism and the refusal of recent US, European, and Russian politics to conform to the confident expectations of Cold War triumphalism.

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History