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Stalin's Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War - eBook
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Product Information
▼▲Title: Stalin's Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War - eBook By: Robert Gellately Format: DRM Protected ePub Vendor: Vintage | Publication Date: 2013 ISBN: 9780307962355 ISBN-13: 9780307962355 Stock No: WW33140EB |
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Publisher's Description
▼▲A chilling, riveting account based on newly released Russian documentation that reveals Joseph Stalins true motivesand the extent of his enduring commitment to expanding the Soviet empireduring the years in which he seemingly collaborated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the capitalist West.
At the Big Three conferences of World War II, Joseph Stalin persuasively played the role of a great world leader, whose primary concerns lay in international strategy and power politics, and not communist ideology. Now, using recently uncovered documents, Robert Gellately conclusively shows that, in fact, the dictator was biding his time, determined to establish Communist regimes across Europe and beyond. His actions during those yearsand the poorly calculated responses to them from the Westset in motion what would eventually become the Cold War. Exciting, deeply engaging, and shrewdly perceptive, Stalins Curse is an unprecedented revelation of the sinister machinations of Stalins Kremlin.
Author Bio
▼▲Robert Gellately is the Earl Ray Beck Professor of History at Florida State University. In 2004-5 he was selected as the Bertelsmann Visiting Professor of Twentieth Century Jewish Politics and History, at Oxford University. He is the author of Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe; The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933-1945; and Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages.
Editorial Reviews
▼▲The Economist
"[M]asterful and brilliant . . . Gellately has mined the newly available archives in the former Soviet Union. The result is a definitive account that shows readers precisely how Stalin started, and tried to manage, the Cold War in an attempt to reach his never-abandoned goal of spreading communism throughout the world, with an aim to final victory."
Ronald Radosh, The Weekly Standard
"[A] refreshingly frank analysis. Not for [Gellately] is the revisionist notion that the US was as much to blame for the cold war as the Soviet Union . . . a powerful work of synthesis."
Robert Service, New Statesman
"[M]asterful . . . [T]his book should become a go-to read on how the Cold War developed."
Jacob Sherman, Library Journal
"[I]mpeccably researched and cogently argued . . . Gellatelys intimate knowledge of the sources across Eastern European and of Russian archives compels us to accept his conclusions . . . The blame for the barren cul-de-sac down which global history strayed for nearly half a century has never been better diagnosed: It was Stalins curse."
Andrew Roberts, The Wall Street Journal
"A fascinating study . . . Using rich sources from archives to memoirs, the author convincingly shows that Stalin was a committed follwer of Marxism-Leninism and worked constantly to expand the international revolution under Russia's leadership . . . Highly recommended."
D. J. Dunn, Choice
"Florida State Universitys Gellately (Lenin, Stalin and Hitler) adds to his distinguished body of work on 20th-century totalitarianism with this analysis of Stalins conduct in international relations between 1939 and 1953 . . . Interweaving scholarship and the testimonies of those who suffered under Stalins rule, Gellatelys history is political and personal."
Publishers Weekly
"[I]mpressive . . . This is a meticulously researched and well written study that makes extensive use of archival and other primary sources. In addition to the large amount of eye-opening information assembled the strength of the book is bolstered by a bracing critical approach."
Paul Hollander, Liberty and Law
"Meticulously documented. One gets the feeling that Gellately is the sort of historian whose sleep would be disturbed by any suspicion that he might have made an error . . . Gellatelys exhaustively researched and elegantly written book is a superb contribution to the scholarship of a time and place that remains a cautionary tale for the free world.
Rosemary Michaud, Charlestown Post and Courier
"Gellately here indicts Stalin as the primary instigator of the Cold War, marshaling evidence from Communist archives that undermines the revisionist case for Western responsibility for starting the confrontation . . . Gellatelys fine contribution to Cold War studies will engage readers with its inside-the-Kremlin detail."
Gilbert Taylor, Booklist
"[E]ngaging . . . [Gellately is] an acute observer, so the book should reach a wide audience of interested readers. When confronting controversial questions he invariably demonstrates sound judgment and a willingness to allow for multiple interpretations . . . Gellately may be the first historian studying the Soviet side of the Cold War who has made such broad use of on-line archival sources, plus the rich document collections published on the Soviet Union and the Cold War since the turn of the century."
Norman M. Naimark, International Affairs (UK)
"[An] outstanding work . . . A prominent historian of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, Gellately offers a panoramic view of Stalins political, diplomatic and psychological manoeuvres that allowed the USSR to achieve superpower status. The author has an encyclopedic knowledge of his subject and provides a compelling narrative of deception, brutality, foolishness and betrayed idealism."
Vladimir Tismaneanu, Times Higher Education
"[M]asterful . . . historian Robert Gellately takes us back to square one. Whodunit? Stalin."
Katie Engelhart, Mcleans
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