This is an account of Soviet life in the 1970s at all levels and in all its complex contradictions, written by a journalist from the New York Times stationed there for several years during that decade. He is an excellent writer, able to get underneath the official skin and convincingly analyse the Russian psyche and soul and world outlook in a balanced, judicious and humane way without resorting to either positive or negative cliches. More recent attempts at a similar thing, such as Jonathan Dimbleby's a few years ago, could learn a lot from this. ( )