A command of history and an indefatigable curiosity animate the author's elegant, evocative prose, rich but never pedantically dense with detail. Engrossing as well are chapters on Genghis Khan, a visit to a greenhouse collective located in a women's prison, and tours of the fabled cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. Moorhouse, whose trip was made easier by glasnost , argues that Gorbachev's obstacles to reform are due less to ethnic and local independence movements than to the people's 'stupefying inertia,' engendered by 70 years of communism. DJ, Fine. Hardcover,