That Alexander Yakovlev has written a volume of memoirs will come as no surprise to those familiar with the man. As the subject of so many strongly contrasting opinions, it was only a matter of time before the former Central Committee propaganda chief and main architect of Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika sat down to express his own point of view.

He waited until the end of the 20th century to do it and his memoirs reflect the desire to sum up commonly inspired by round dates. Yakovlev's life spans almost the entire Soviet period – he was born in 1923 – and his road from village boy to member of the Communist Party elite is a tale that opens a broad perspective on Russia's history this century. But the perspective is perhaps too broad. Rather than being just a collection of memoirs, Yakovlev's book is a reflection on the whys and hows of history. Why did Russia become Soviet? How did the communist system survive so long? Why has the transition to democracy been so painful and difficult?

Yakovlev attempts to give his answers to these questions through a mixture of personal recollection and historical analysis. The result makes for often dry reading. Yakovlev seems to have decided largely to dispense with the lighter, anecdotal and individual side of history in favor of the "big" questions and general issues. But the value of memoirs so often lies precisely in their anecdotal, personal nature, which can sometimes sum up an era better than any scholarly essay.

Some moments are more vividly described, his village childhood, for example, his time as a soldier in the war, his gradual introduction to the workings of the party system after the war. Interesting insights come with his recollections of political events such as Nikita Khrushchev's "secret speech" denouncing the cult of personality at the 20th party congress or the atmosphere during the Prague spring. But there are also frustrating moments. Yakovlev was one of the first Soviet students to study in the U.S. on post-war exchange programs, but we learn little about his thoughts on and experience of America. He was a long-time Soviet ambassador to Canada – a kind of exile imposed for his wayward political views – but most of that period is also brushed over quickly.

As expected, a lot of attention goes to a detailed account of Gorbachev and the Perestroika years, in which Yakovlev was a key player – a role that has earned him praise from some and hatred from others. He sets out his understanding of the achievements and failures of the period, welcoming the new freedom it brought and regretting that the Soviet Union split apart before some way of transforming it into a voluntary union could be found.

Looking at the post-Soviet years, Yakovlev is critical of events in Chechnya, of the ongoing economic muddle, bloated bureaucracy and the excesses of a cynical interpretation of what the market is all about. He describes Boris Yeltsin as being "too Russian," one of those Russians who first creates immense difficulties for himself and then makes courageous efforts to overcome them.

"Freedom is my religion," Yakovlev writes at one point. His is that hard-won freedom found after discarding communist illusions. Only without illusions, the world is less rosy and throughout the book, there is a sense of waking up to a country devastated, a passive people consoling themselves with vodka and waiting for the state to help them. He doesn't try guessing the future, leaving the reader with the hope that the next century will be better for Russia and the feeling that Yakovlev the man remained a secondary figure throughout this book.

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