On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union begins its countdown: "ten, nine, eight, seven . . . ". From the steppes of Kazakhstan, the first human in history - the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin - launches into space.

In that moment, another countdown begins. Who could have imagined that just three decades - a single generation - would separate the USSR's crowning achievement from the collapse of the Soviet empire? In The Dark Side of the Earth, legendary dissident journalist Mikhail Zygar tells the inside story of one of history's most epochal transitions.

Drawing on interviews with hundreds of key players, he traces the fortunes of an army of unwitting protagonists, from renegade artists and paranoid nuclear scientists to the young Vladimir Putin. The end of the USSR undoubtedly set the stage for today's vengeful return. But as Gagarin looks down from the stars at his home world, is Russia's fate already written?