Perestroika and glasnost are well remembered as Mikhail Gorbachev's double-barreled assault on the static, failing communist order. What Gorbachev did not fully appreciate was how powerful a force glasnost (openness) would be when unleashed upon perestroika (reform). And that owed to the power of the media in a free society. Radios, televisions, newspapers, and even photocopies expanded the Russian conception of a free society faster than the government could constrain it. Scott Shane, author of Dismantling Utopia, describes how it all transpired.
Guests: Scott Shane, Special Project Reporter and former Moscow correspondent, The Baltimore Sun, and author of Dismantling Utopia: How Information Ended the Soviet Union
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