Reviews
John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University; author of George F. Kennan: A Life , winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Biography: "In its size, sweep, sensitivity, and surprises, Stephen Kotkin's first volume on Stalin is a monumental achievement: the early life of a man we thought we knew, set against the world-no less-that he inhabited. It's biography on an epic scale. Only Tolstoy might have matched it." William Taubman, Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Amherst Colle≥ author of Khrushchev: The Man and his Era , winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Biography "Stalin has had more than his fair share of biographies. But Stephen Kotkin's wonderfully broad-gauged work surpasses them all in both breadth and depth, showing brilliantly how the man, the time, the place, its history, and especially Russian/Soviet political culture, combined to produce one of history's greatest evil geniuses." David Halloway, Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, Stanford University; author of Stalin and the Bomb : "Stephen Kotkin's first volume on Stalin is ambitious in conception and masterly in execution. It provides a brilliant account of Stalin's formation as a political actor up to his fateful decision to collectivize agriculture by force. Kotkin combines biography with historical analysis in a way that brings out clearly Stalin's great political talents as well as the ruthlessness with which he applied them and the impact his policies had on Russia and the world. This is a magisterial work on the grandest scale." Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution: "More than any of Stalin's previous biographers, Stephen Kotkin humanizes one of the great monsters of history, thereby making the monstrosity more comprehensible than it has been before. He does so by sticking to the facts-many of them fresh, all of them marshalled into a gripping, fine-grained story. At the core is Stalin's relentless discipline, willpower, and ambition; his shrewd manipulation of those who underestimated him and those who understood him too well; his mastery of ideology, bureaucracy, and, when he felt strong enough to get away with it, terror. In Kotkin's telling, 'Koba' Jugashvili's transformation from a cobbler's son and seminarian in a backwater of a decrepit empire to the Man of Steel helps us understand Russia's emergence from chaos and civil war to the status of a geopolitical superpower with a system of governance that was, like its defining leader, a monstrosity eventually doomed to its own collapse.", Kirkus Reviews (starred): "Authoritative and rigorous…. Staggeringly wide in scope, this work meticulously examines the structural forces that brought down one autocratic regime and put in place another." Publishers Weekly : "This is an epic, thoroughly researched account that presents a broad vision of Stalin, from his birth to his rise to absolute power." Library Journal : "Kotkin has been researching his magisterial biography of Stalin for a decade. Inescapably important reading." John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University; author of George F. Kennan: A Life , winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Biography: "In its size, sweep, sensitivity, and surprises, Stephen Kotkin's first volume on Stalin is a monumental achievement: the early life of a man we thought we knew, set against the world-no less-that he inhabited. It's biography on an epic scale. Only Tolstoy might have matched it." William Taubman, Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Amherst Colle≥ author of Khrushchev: The Man and his Era , winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Biography "Stalin has had more than his fair share of biographies. But Stephen Kotkin's wonderfully broad-gauged work surpasses them all in both breadth and depth, showing brilliantly how the man, the time, the place, its history, and especially Russian/Soviet political culture, combined to produce one of history's greatest evil geniuses." David Halloway, Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, Stanford University; author of Stalin and the Bomb : "Stephen Kotkin's first volume on Stalin is ambitious in conception and masterly in execution. It provides a brilliant account of Stalin's formation as a political actor up to his fateful decision to collectivize agriculture by force. Kotkin combines biography with historical analysis in a way that brings out clearly Stalin's great political talents as well as the ruthlessness with which he applied them and the impact his policies had on Russia and the world. This is a magisterial work on the grandest scale." Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution: "More than any of Stalin's previous biographers, Stephen Kotkin humanizes one of the great monsters of history, thereby making the monstrosity more comprehensible than it has been before. He does so by sticking to the facts-many of them fresh, all of them marshalled into a gripping, fine-grained story.", Kirkus Reviews (starred): "Authoritative and rigorous…. Staggeringly wide in scope, this work meticulously examines the structural forces that brought down one autocratic regime and put in place another." Library Journal : "Kotkin has been researching his magisterial biography of Stalin for a decade. Inescapably important reading." John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University; author of George F. Kennan: A Life , winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Biography: "In its size, sweep, sensitivity, and surprises, Stephen Kotkin's first volume on Stalin is a monumental achievement: the early life of a man we thought we knew, set against the world-no less-that he inhabited. It's biography on an epic scale. Only Tolstoy might have matched it." William Taubman, Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Amherst Colle≥ author of Khrushchev: The Man and his Era , winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Biography "Stalin has had more than his fair share of biographies. But Stephen Kotkin's wonderfully broad-gauged work surpasses them all in both breadth and depth, showing brilliantly how the man, the time, the place, its history, and especially Russian/Soviet political culture, combined to produce one of history's greatest evil geniuses." David Halloway, Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, Stanford University; author of Stalin and the Bomb : "Stephen Kotkin's first volume on Stalin is ambitious in conception and masterly in execution. It provides a brilliant account of Stalin's formation as a political actor up to his fateful decision to collectivize agriculture by force. Kotkin combines biography with historical analysis in a way that brings out clearly Stalin's great political talents as well as the ruthlessness with which he applied them and the impact his policies had on Russia and the world. This is a magisterial work on the grandest scale." Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution: "More than any of Stalin's previous biographers, Stephen Kotkin humanizes one of the great monsters of history, thereby making the monstrosity more comprehensible than it has been before. He does so by sticking to the facts-many of them fresh, all of them marshalled into a gripping, fine-grained story.", Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic : "An exceptionally ambitious biography… Kotkin builds the case for quite a different interpretation of Stalin-and for quite a few other things, too. The book's signature achievement… is its vast scope: Kotkin has set out to write not only the definitive life of Stalin but also the definitive history of the collapse of the Russian empire and the creation of the new Soviet empire in its place." Booklist (starred): "An ambitious, massive, highly detailed work that offers fresh perspectives on the collapse of the czarist regime, the rise of the Bolsheviks, and the seemingly unlikely rise of Stalin to total power over much of the Eurasian land mass....This is an outstanding beginning to what promises to be a definitive work on the Stalin era." Kirkus Reviews (starred): "Authoritative and rigorous…. Staggeringly wide in scope, this work meticulously examines the structural forces that brought down one autocratic regime and put in place another." Publishers Weekly : "This is an epic, thoroughly researched account that presents a broad vision of Stalin, from his birth to his rise to absolute power." Library Journal : "Kotkin has been researching his magisterial biography of Stalin for a decade. Inescapably important reading." John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University; author of George F. Kennan: A Life , winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Biography: "In its size, sweep, sensitivity, and surprises, Stephen Kotkin's first volume on Stalin is a monumental achievement: the early life of a man we thought we knew, set against the world-no less-that he inhabited. It's biography on an epic scale. Only Tolstoy might have matched it." William Taubman, Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Amherst Colle≥ author of Khrushchev: The Man and his Era , winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Biography "Stalin has had more than his fair share of biographies. But Stephen Kotkin's wonderfully broad-gauged work surpasses them all in both breadth and depth, showing brilliantly how the man, the time, the place, its history, and especially Russian/Soviet political culture, combined to produce one of history's greatest evil geniuses." David Halloway, Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, Stanford University; author of Stalin and the Bomb : "Stephen Kotkin's first volume on Stalin is ambitious in conception and masterly in execution. It provides a brilliant account of Stalin's formation as a political actor up to his fateful decision to collectivize agriculture by force. Kotkin combines biography with historical analysis in a way that brings out clearly Stalin's great political talents as well as the ruthlessness with which he applied them and the impact his policies had on Russia and the world. This is a magisterial work on the grandest scale." Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution: "More than any of Stalin's previous biographers, Stephen Kotkin humanizes one of the great monsters of history, thereby making the monstrosity more comprehensible than it has been before. He does so by sticking to the facts-many of them fresh, all of them marshalled into a gripping, fine-grained story."