Author Description

Having struggled to the top of the greasy pole of politics, the six leaders considered in this volume — Mikhail Gorbachev, F. W. de Klerk, General Jaruzelski, Adolfo Suárez, Achille Occhetto and Neil Kinnock — set about introducing far-reaching changes to their parties or their states. Veritable leaders of transition, they can lay claim to have changed the course of history and yet, ironically, all are now forgotten or vilified in their own countries and were never able to benefit from the changes they introduced. Why, then, did they do what they did? This book sets out to explore their achievements and their motives. Did they behave out of altruism, or did they believe that they could benefit from the transition processes they brought about? If the latter, why did they fail?