Historian Stephen F. Cohen, "whose books and commentaries on Russia examined the rise and fall of Communism, Kremlin dictatorships and the emergence of a post-Soviet nation still struggling for identity in the 21st century," died September 18 at age 81, the New York Times reported. Cohen first came to international attention in 1973 with Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, which was a finalist for a National Book Award. His other works include Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War; The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin; Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev's Reformers (with Katrina vanden Heuvel); and Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History Since 1917.
Upon learning of Cohen's death, Mikhail Gorbachev sent a letter of condolence to Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director and publisher of the Nation and Cohen's wife, writing: "He was one of the closest people to me in his views and understanding of the enormous events that occurred in the late 1980s in Russia and changed the world. Steve was a brilliant historian and a man of democratic convictions. He loved Russia, the Russian intelligentsia, and believed in our country's future." Cohen's latest book, War with Russia?: From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate (2019), is available in paperback from Hot Books ($18.99).