[This] book is written in a highly-engaging style, with exciting first-hand accounts of the author's adventures in covering the unravelling of the Soviet empire, including detailed descriptions of the events of August, 1991, and October, 1993...Steele's work stands as one of the best available works documenting events in Russia since the late 1980s...[It] provides a superb feel for how events unfolded and contains many sound judgments about a wide variety of aspects of life in contemporary Russia.
   --Taylor E. Dark, International Journal of Comparative Studies

Steele effectively mixes this big-picture perspective with eyewitness accounts of turning points like the August 1991 coup. [This book] will help untangle Russia's fast-moving recent history for lay readers and specialists alike.
   --Robert Decker, Library Journal

Eternal Russia has a powerful title conveying a profound truism. More important, it is an excellent book rooted in history while covering thoroughly the drama of events after 1987.
   --David Owens, Sunday Times [UK

Amid the Stygian pessimism, half-baked advice, half-understood facts, and confused thinking that inform much of Western comment on 'Zhirinovsky's Russia,' Steele's book stands out. He does not treat Russia as if it were a mysterious planet inhabited by little green men. He has lived there.
   --Rodric Braithwaite, The Guardian

A provocative and well-written interpretive analysis of the collapse of Russian communism and of the prospects for democratic consolidation...A thought-provoking analysis. One of the strengths of the book is Steele's ability to weave into the analysis his own first-hand observations from his days in Moscow...It makes for compelling reading that will appeal not only to scholars of Russian reform, but also to students and general readers interested in recent Russian political developments.
   --Russell Bova, Perspectives on Political Science

The author's history is well written and lively, profiting from the fact that Steele actually found his way to the scene of crucial developments as they occurred--to Gorbachev in captivity as well as to the Baltic republics and Afghanistan. The author is a good narrator who shows great sensitivity for the human feelings involved in the various situations...Steele does not pretend to have answers to all the important questions he raises about this history still so much in progress, but he has done an excellent job of formulating those questions.
   --Mediterranean Quarterly

Jonathan Steele was Moscow bureau chief for The Guardian[UK] until the spring of 1994. He was named International Reporter of the Year in the British Press Awards in 1981 and in 1991. He also won the London Press Club's Scoop of the Year Award for being the only British or American reporter to get to Gorbachev's prison villa in the Crimea during the 1991 coup.