Armenia in Crisis
The 1988 Earthquake

Armenia in Crisis documents the tragic Armenian earthquake and the surrounding political controversies that rocked the Soviet Union and contributed to its collapse. In sparse and griping prose, Pierre Verluise, a French journalist and Soviet specialist, uses the accounts of survivors and relief workers to tell the story of this catastrophe in its human and political dimensions. Relying on personal interviews and press reports, he recounts the destruction and despair, the emotional reactions of survivors and relief workers, the political struggles between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and the Armenians, and the shortcomings in Soviet construction methods and disaster preparedness.