Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer to discuss Gorbachev’s legacy in Putin era

William Taubman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer who authored the first comprehensive biography of the Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, will discuss Gorbachev’s legacy and its relevance in the age of Russian President Vladimir Putin when he visits Salve Regina on Thursday, April 25.

Taubman will present “The Rise and Fall of Mikhail Gorbachev – and Their Lessons for the Putin Era” at 6:30 p.m. in the Bazarsky Lecture Hall. His lecture will be the third in the University’s John E. McGinty Lecture in History series.

Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Amherst College. His book, “Gorbachev: His Life and Times,” was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography. The work was described by leading diplomat, scholar and journalist Strobe Talbott in the New York Review of Books as a “masterpiece of narrative scholarship.”

Taubman won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for “Khrushchev: The Man and His Era.”

Immediately following the lecture, Taubman will sign copies of his book on Gorbachev, which will be available for purchase on site.