For more than eight years, Boris Yeltsin was charged with one of the greatest political challenges in history: transforming Russia's vast one-party totalitarian state into a free-market democracy. Midnight Diaries is President Yeltsin's astoundingly candid personal account of those crucial, tumultuous years.Growing out of a series of late-night conversations between Yeltsin and his chief of staff, Midnight Diaries addresses the real impact of the coup of 1991; the bloody 1993 showdown with Parliament; Yeltsin's relationships with Bill Clinton and other world leaders; the crisis in Chechnya; the labyrinthine Russian economy; Yeltsin's health problems; and much more. Freewheeling and direct, in the style of the man himself, Midnight Diaries is a fascinating, unprecedented look at history in the making.