General Alexander Lebed is the most popular leader in Russia and its likely next president. Now, here is the brawling autobiography of this paratrooper, politician, peacemaker, and patriot. General Lebed's story takes readers from vodka-sodden arguments settled by teeth-rattling fisticuffs in Russian army barracks, to the chaos of the attempted coup against Gorbachev and Yeltsin (in which Lebed took orders from both Yeltsin and the coup-minded military officers), to Russia's volatile present and its undetermined future. Here are Lebed's controversial thoughts on NATO expansion, Russia's political and economic relations with the United States and the West, and the outlook for Russian democracy and free-market reforms. The most important international political book of the year, General Alexander Lebed: My Life and My Country provides unparalleled insight into the likely leader of the nuclear power that covers one-sixth of the globe, that neighbors a resurgent China and a triumphant NATO, and that is confronting economic turmoil and multi-ethnic conflict.