Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator

Format: Paperback Language: English ISBN: 0300219784 ISBN13: 9780300219784 Release Date: September 2017 Publisher: Yale University Press Length: 432 Pages Weight: 1.20 lbs. Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.9" The most authoritative and engrossing biography of the notorious dictator ever written Josef Stalin exercised supreme power in the Soviet Union from 1929 until his death in 1953. During that quarter-century, by Oleg Khlevniuk's estimate, he caused the imprisonment and execution of no fewer than a million Soviet citizens per year. Millions more were victims of famine directly resulting from Stalin's policies. What drove him toward such ruthlessness? This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in th