As there is little to record about Stalin that is not political, this brilliant and fascinating volume is in effect a full-fledged "life and times." The author has devoted many years to studying the ...

For all the blood on his hands, Josef Stalin is indisputably one of the most important historical figures of the 20 th century. But where many biographers agree with Leon Trotsky's waspish dismissal ...

The first volume of Kotkin’s biography of Josef Stalin looks at the Soviet leader’s early and personal life, his role in the Bolshevik Revolution and his eventual control of the Soviet Union starting ...

Simon Sebag Montefiore is best known for his monumental biography Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (2003), which offered a mesmerizing, richly detailed portrait of the Soviet tyrant’s inner ...

STALIN: A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY (600 pp.)—Isaac Deufscher—Oxford ($5). In 1915, Joseph Stalin, professional revolutionist, was exiled to Kureika, Siberia. At 35, he had given all of his adult years to ...

The first course historian Stephen Kotkin taught as a member of Princeton's faculty, "Seminar in the History of Soviet Russia," met for the first time 26 years ago, on Thursday, Sept. 21, 1989.

Stalin continues to fascinate–the central mystery within the riddle inside the enigma that was the Soviet Union. If you Google “Stalin, biography,” 166,000 websites come up. By signing up, you confirm ...

In the last 200 years the idea of will has gone from the most admired philosophical concept to the most maligned. Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps seemed the only way to go for Beethoven. Now we ...

Here is a life-and-times biography in the grand style: deeply researched, well written, brimming with interpretations. Oxford historian Service, author of an acclaimed biography of Lenin, provides the ...