Stalin: A Biography - Softcover

Service, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330518372 ISBN 13: 9780330518376

Publisher: Pan Books Ltd, 2010

Synopsis

Drawing on a wealth of unexplored material - available for the first time since the collapse of the former Soviet Union - Robert Service's biography of Stalin is the most authoritative yet published. It concentrates not simply on Stalin as dedicated bureaucrat or serial political killer, but on a fuller assessment of his formative interactions in Georgia, his youthful revolutionary activism, his relationship with Lenin, with his family, and with his party members.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Service is the author of Lenin: A Biography, and Russia: Experiment with a People and is the author of numerous other books on Russian history, including his History of Twentieth Century Russia

Review:

''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 most complete portrait available of the Soviet ruler, from his early, troubled years in a small town in Georgia to the pinnacle of power in the Kremlin. Most previous biographers have depicted Stalin as a plodding figure whose only distinguishing characteristic was brutality. But Service describes a man who was intelligent and hardworking, who learned from experience and who played an important role in the Russian revolutionary movement...By providing such a rich and complex portrait of the dictator and the Soviet system, Service humanizes Stalin without ever diminishing the extent of the atrocities he unleashed upon the Soviet population.'' ---Publishers Weekly

''For an understanding of Stalin the man, the leader, the Georgian, the Russian nationalist, the revolutionary, the party politician, the mass murderer and the international statesman, and his place in modern Russian history, Robert Service's book is unsurpassed.'' --Harold Shukman, author of Stalin's Generals

''This is effectively the first full biography since perestroika to encompass the economic, political, diplomatic, military, administrative and, above all, ideological dimensions, as well as the personal aspects of Stalin's colossal life ...Gritty and unshowy, but enlightened by Service's compelling characterization, magisterial analysis and dry wit, this outstanding biography of lightly worn authority, wide research and superb intuition will be read for decades.'' --- Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of 'Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar', Sunday Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Pan Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0330518372
• ISBN 13: 9780330518376
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 715