Picking up the pieces from the Soviet collapse

Publishers: Crown

Author: Lawrence Scott Sheets

The Soviet Union didn't just collapse - it shattered into many, many pieces. And suddenly, those pieces - political, economic, even religious - were up for grabs.

Lawrence Scott Sheets' 8 Pieces of Empire is a vivid, largely anecdotal account of the chaos and confusion that has followed in the two decades since the fall of the massive communist entity that once obsessed America. It leaves the reader hungry for more.

As a correspondent for Reuters and NPR, Sheets had access to a range of people and places, but he often found himself tagged a "war correspondent".

This often meant covering conflicts that didn't necessarily get the attention they deserved in the West - Azerbaijan versus Armenia, Azerbaijan versus itself, and more. Sheets gives them generous space, and often in unusual ways. In one case, he describes how some carpets managed to save a group of people fleeing a conflict zone.

The strength of the book lies in its descriptions of individuals, whether bureaucrats ("I cannot answer that question") or the young woman who was too Chechen for the Russians and too Russian for the Chechens and who ultimately vanished at a time when kidnappings were rife.

There are far too many moments of absurdity. Some are funny. Some are not.

A decision to go to war made by naked, drunken men in a bathhouse during a birthday party? Tragic, indeed. (After reading the book, one cannot help but wonder how different the Soviet Union could have been if people didn't drink so much, but maybe that's venturing into chicken-and-egg territory.)

Unfortunately, some of the most interesting parts of Sheets' book also are some of its slimmest sections. The changing role of the Russian Orthodox Church and the rising strength of Islam deserved more space.

But the author himself notes that in many ways what was once the Soviet Union is not finished falling apart. Separatist movements abound, and more wars, even if small, seem almost certain. There will likely be plenty more pieces to write about in the future.