Download or read book Steeltown, USSR written by Stephen Kotkin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kotkin offers the reader an unsurpassed portrait of daily life in the Gorbachev era. From the formation of "informal" political groups to the start-up of fledgling businesses in the new cooperative sector, from the no-holds-barred investigative reporting of a former Communist party mouthpiece to a freewheeling multicandidate election campaign, the author conveys the texture of contemporary Soviet society in the throes of an upheaval not seen since the 1930s.