Can anyone recommend a good book about Stalin?

[lordsummerisle]

Last edited Mon Oct 9, 2017, 08:08 PM - Edit history (1)

Looking for a history or biography, not an allegory, thanks...

[Xipe Totec]

1. Animal Farm nt

[Sailor65x1]

2. 1984 nt

[bagelsforbreakfast]

3. Not on Stalin but perhaps "Stalinism" - DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler n/m

[friendly_iconoclast]

4. Two: "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar" and "Young Stalin" by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Last edited Mon Oct 9, 2017, 09:18 PM - Edit history (1)

[Blindingly apparent]

5. Timothy Snyders Blood Lands

This is a nonfiction book and not just about Stalin’s policies that were so devastating for Eastern Europe but also Hitler’s similar and equally punishing devastation on the sane region. Be warned though, it is a very long book and at times heartbreaking.

[LSFL]

6. the gulag archipelago

Not a biography but shows the monstrous results of his policies.

[left-of-center2012]

7. Amazon has these

Some are 4 1/2 stars out of five stars.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0?fst=p90x%3A1%2Cas%3Aoff&rh=n%3A283155%2Cn%3A9681299011%2Ck%3AStalin&keywords=Stalin&ie=UTF8&qid=1507600883&rnid=1000&lo=stripbooks

[lordsummerisle]

8. Didn't Stalin's daughter write a book?

Anyone read this?

[Journeyman]

9. Hannah Arendt: "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (1952) . . .

Isaac Deutscher: Stalin: A Political Biography (1949)

Boris Souvarine: Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism (1939)


Obviously, somewhat dated, but most of my study of him was done throughout the 1970s.

I cannot recommend Arendt's book highly enough. Sweeping in scope, more insightful than anything else I've ever read, her book remains one of the primary studies of the 20th century phenomenon that continues to plague us. It will change the way you view and understand the world. And you'll never make light or casual comparisons again.

I wish you well in your studies.

[Journeyman]

11. "The Origins of Totalitarianism" . . .

[lordsummerisle]

12. Thanks for all of the suggestions n/t

[thucythucy]

13. "Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives"

by Alan Bullock.

He writes about them both as the two central figures of 20th century European history, alternating chapters and drawings similarities and differences. The book is more than a thousand pages long, so even though the focus is divided, you get a lot of detail on Stalin, including his childhood. What I found perhaps most fascinating is his relationship to Lenin, and Lenin's changing views of Stalin. Lenin at first admired Stalin for being "a man of action"--especially in the years before the revolution--when most of the early Bolsheviks were intellectuals more prone to debate than actual insurrection. Stalin helped fund the party before the revolution through a series of bank robberies he personally pulled off. But later, toward the end of his life, Lenin saw Stalin as a megalomaniac in the making, and wrote in his will that Stalin should be stripped of his power.

Anyway, if you're looking for LOTS of detail, I think Bullock is a great place to find it.