by Andrew Wilson

Author Information: Andrew Wilson is senior lecturer in Russian and Ukrainian studies at the School of Slavonic & East European Studies, University of London. He is also the author of Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation and Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World.

Book Description: The remarkable popular protest in Kiev and across Ukraine following the cooked presidential election of November 2004 has transformed the politics of eastern Europe. Andrew Wilson witnessed the events firsthand and here looks behind the headlines to ascertain what really happened and how it will affect the future of the region.
It is a dramatic story: an outgoing president implicated via secret tape-recordings in corruption and murder; a shadowy world of political cheats and manipulators; the massive covert involvement of Putin’s Russia; the poisoning of the opposition challenger; and finally the mass protest of half a million Ukrainians that forced a second poll and the victory of Viktor Yushchenko.

As well as giving an account of the election and its aftermath, the book examines the broader implications of the Orange Revolution and of Russia’s serious miscalculation of its level of influence. It explores the likely chain reaction in Moldova, Belarus, and the nervous autocracies of the Caucasus, and points to a historical transformation of the geopolitics of Eurasia. (Amazon review)

Recommendation: This book was recommended to me by LEvko of Foreign Notes. If you're going to read one book on the Orange Revolution (and you want just the facts, not personal memoir), this is probably the one.

Book Links

Yale Press not-at-all-biased review
Article List on FindArticles.com
Amazon