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Stalin : Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 by Stephen. Kotkin (2014, Hardcover)
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A magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understanding of Stalin and his world It has the quality of myth: a poor cobbler’s son, a seminarian from an oppressed outer province of the Russian empire, reinvents himself as a top leader in a band of revolutionary zealots.
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherPenguin Publishing Group
ISBN-101594203792
ISBN-139781594203794
eBay Product ID (ePID)201599462
Product Key Features
Book TitleStalin : Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
Number of Pages976 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication Year2014
TopicRussia & the Former Soviet Union, Modern / 20th Century, History & Theory, General, Presidents & Heads of State, Political
IllustratorYes
GenrePolitical Science, Biography & Autobiography, History
AuthorStephen. Kotkin
FormatHardcover
Dimensions
Item Height1.9 in
Item Weight47.1 Oz
Item Length9.6 in
Item Width6.5 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
LCCN2014-032906
ReviewsJohn 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."
Dewey Edition23
Dewey Decimal947.084/2092 B
SynopsisA magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understanding of Stalin and his world It has the quality of myth: a poor cobbler's son, a seminarian from an oppressed outer province of the Russian empire, reinvents himself as a top leader in a band of revolutionary zealots. When the band seizes control of the country in the aftermath of total world war, the former seminarian ruthlessly dominates the new regime until he stands as absolute ruler of a vast and terrible state apparatus, with dominion over Eurasia. While still building his power base within the Bolshevik dictatorship, he embarks upon the greatest gamble of his political life and the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted: the collectivization of all agriculture and industry across one sixth of the earth. Millions will die, and many more millions will suffer, but the man will push through to the end against all resistance and doubts. Where did such power come from? In Stalin , Stephen Kotkin offers a biography that, at long last, is equal to this shrewd, sociopathic, charismatic dictator in all his dimensions. The character of Stalin emerges as both astute and blinkered, cynical and true believing, people oriented and vicious, canny enough to see through people but prone to nonsensical beliefs. 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. Stalin gives an intimate view of the Bolshevik regime's inner geography of power, bringing to the fore fresh materials from Soviet military intelligence and the secret police. Kotkin rejects the inherited wisdom about Stalin's psychological makeup, showing us instead how Stalin's near paranoia was fundamentally political, and closely tracks the Bolshevik revolution's structural paranoia, the predicament of a Communist regime in an overwhelmingly capitalist world, surrounded and penetrated by enemies. At the same time, Kotkin demonstrates the impossibility of understanding Stalin's momentous decisions outside of the context of the tragic history of imperial Russia. The product of a decade of intrepid research, Stalin is a landmark achievement, a work that recasts the way we think about the Soviet Union, revolution, dictatorship, the twentieth century, and indeed the art of history itself. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 will be published by Penguin Press in October 2017
LC Classification NumberDK268.S8K65 2014
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- Jan 03, 2022
Excelente!!
Es la mejor biografía de Stalin que he leído!!! Estoy muy contento…Verified purchase: YesCondition: Pre-owned
