Sifting through a wide range of primary Russian sources, Leon Aron considers what sparked the profound shift in values that occurred in the Soviet Union before its fall. He pinpoints several principal questions brought to light in the glasnost-era press, marked by an unprecedented level of national self-scrutiny and dealing at the core with the question of what is a fair and just relationship between individuals and the state. Aron presents a thorough and original history of the ways in which new ideas were disseminated through the various media of the former Soviet Union, subsequently sparking a public debate that involved intellectuals as well as common folk. Aron shows how these new ideas reached every corner of the nation, thwarted the philosophical underpinnings of Soviet ideology, and led to the inevitable collapse of the USSR.

Leon Aron is Director of Russian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He is the author of Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life and Russia's Revolution: Essays 1989-2006.

"This is an outstanding work. No such extraordinary work on the ideas of perestroika and glasnost will be written."--Anders Aslund, Peterson Institute for International Economics

"Leon Aron has written a book about the moral foundation of perestroika and the colossal reassessment of values, which brought about an unprecedented and, for many, unexpected shift in Russian history. These were the years when we tried to bring together politics and morality. Today, when Russia is again facing a crucial choice, it is very important to remember that time and the people who moved forward this difficult but necessary process of intellectual and then political transformation."—Mikhail Gorbachev

"Human beings forget luminescent moments when the pursuit of human dignity lights up our world. Leon Aron does not allow us to forget the remarkable Soviet revolution of 1987-1991, a moment of moral clarity increasingly submerged in a miasma of deception."—Blair Ruble, Director, Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center

"From America's most insightful chronicler of Russian affairs comes a vividly drawn portrait of a country coming awake. Both erudite and gripping, passionate and yet rigorous, Roads to the Temple is a masterpiece of cultural and intellectual history."—Daniel Treisman, author of The Return: Russia's Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev

"Leon Aron's book is an indispensible guide to the forces that shaped Russia's years of glasnost and revolution, a work of intellectual history that is brimming with fresh insights and points the way to the great challenges facing Russian democracy today."—David E. Hoffman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy

"A stunning portrait of the intellectual and moral revolution that burst forth between 1987 and 1991... Aron skillfully captures the vastness and intensity of this transfiguration of ideas." - Foreign Affairs Review