The Soviet biologist Irina Granina has experienced the worst of Communism, struggling to free her husband from the gulag for years. Following the rise of Gorbachev, her husband finally emerges a changed man, but then Irina is forced to witness the worst of capitalism, as her daughter disappears into the new consumer society and she loses her husband again, this time to greed and a lust for power. In the West, Jennifer Moore, a wealthy American, takes a high-ranking job at the IMF, hoping to bring the free market economy to all, whilst dealing with her philandering husband.