A magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understanding of Stalin and his world The
product of a decade of intrepid research Stalin is a landmark achievement. Stephen Kotkin
offers a biography that at long last is equal to this shrewd sociopathic charismatic
dictator in all his dimensions. We see a man inclined to despotism who could be utterly
charming a pragmatic ideologue a leader who obsessed over slights yet was a precocious
geostrategic thinker-unique among Bolsheviks-and yet who made egregious strategic blunders.
Through it all we see Stalin's unflinching persistence his sheer force of will-perhaps the
ultimate key to understanding his indelible mark on history. Drawing on Kotkin's exhaustive
study of Soviet archival materials as well as vast scholarly literature Stalin recasts the way
we think about the Soviet Union revolution dictatorship the twentieth century and indeed
the art of history itself.
