Stephen Kotkin is the John P. Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is also a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He directs Princeton's Institute for International and Regional Studies and co-directs its Program in the History and Practice of Diplomacy. His books include Uncivil Society, Armageddon Averted, and Magnetic Mountain. Kotkin was a Pultizer Prize finalist for Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928.
Winner of the Mark Lynton History Prize, 2018
A Sunday Times (London) History Book of the Year 2017
One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Biographies of 2017
“Monumental . . . Drawing on an astonishing array of sources,
Kotkin paints a richly variegated portrait, delving into Stalin’s
peculiar personality even while situating him within the
trajectories of Soviet history and totalitarianism more generally.
. . Kotkin teases out his subject’s contradictions, revealing
Stalin as both ideologue and opportunist, man of iron will and
creature of the Soviet system, creep who apparently drove his wife
to suicide and leader who inspired his people. . . will surely
stand for years to come as a seminal account of some of the most
devastating events of the 20th century.” —The New York Times Book
Review
“The book makes it mark through its theoretical sophistication,
relentless argumentation, and sheer Stakhoanovite immensity. . .
Kotkin also attempts to answer the chief philosophical question
about Stalin: whether the monstrous regime he created was a
function of his personality or of something inherent in
Bolshevism.” —Keith Gessen, The New Yorker
“A masterpiece, surely one of the most remarkable books on
20th-century history to have been published in many years. It is
not only the depth of research that takes the breath away; it is
the scale and range of Kotkin’s framing of his subject and the
acuity of his observations.” —Mark Mazower, The Guardian
“A stunning achievement . . . In a landmark work of historical
scholarship, Kotkinhas written a captivating biography of a despot
that chronicles the evolutionof Stalin as a human being, political
operator, and growing archfiend in this horrificera of modern
history.” —Jurors of the Mark Lynton History Prize, 2018
“Kotkin delivers more than a detailed and revealing biography. His
academic precision and narrative power illuminates Stalin’s
personal journey with an exactness that stays with the reader long
after the book is finished. . . . Kotkin brings a refreshing
objectivity to one of the most complex figures in recent world
history.” —Former Senator Jim Webb
“[T]he second volume of what will surely rank as one of the
greatest historical achievements of our age . . . few other
biographies have so succeeded in showing how one man shaped his
times, and how his times shaped him. This is a book not just about
Stalin but about the entire spectrum of world affairs in the 1930s,
its focus constantly shifting from the tiniest personal details to
the grand sweep of international strategy. Kotkin’s project is the
War and Peace of history: a book you fear you will never finish,
but just cannot put down. The ending is perfectly judged. It is the
night of Saturday, June 21, 1941. In his office, Stalin paces
nervously, waiting for news. And on the border, Hitler’s war
machine prepares to strike.” —The Times (London)
“There have been many other biographies of Stalin, but none matches
the range of information and analysis that animates Mr. Kotkin’s
ambitious project. Waiting for Hitler is biography and
history on a grand scale – equal in scope to the enormity of the
events it describes.” —Joshua Rubenstein, The Wall Street
Journal
“This has never been better nor more plausibly told than by Kotkin
in this brilliant, compelling, propulsively written, magnificent
tour de force . . . I eagerly await volume three.” —Simon
Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard
“It is the most gripping of reads, packed with epoch-shaking events
and human tragedy. This volume sweeps through the collectivisation
of agriculture and the mass famine of the early 1930s, the Great
Terror of 1936-38, the outbreak of the second world war, the
disastrous winter war against Finland, and the macabre diplomatic
dance between Stalin and Hitler ahead of the Nazi invasion of June
1941. This is, as close as it is possible to imagine, the
definitive biography of Stalin.” —Financial Times
“A triumph, necessary reading for anyone hoping to make sense of
Stalin and the Soviet Union.” —New Criterion
“Kotkin, a Princeton history professor, has performed prodigies of
research, wading through masses of previously inaccessible
Soviet-era documents to produce what is surely the definitive
portrait.” —American Conservative
“It is unlikely we will soon have a biography the equal of
Kotkin’s… We turn to a biography of this heft for the larger
history, and for detailed analyses of that history, and Kotkin
doesn’t disappoint… Thrilling and engrossing.” —Jewish Currents
“Against all odds considering their grim topics, these Stalin
volumes from Kotkin, in addition to being definitive, are the kind
of infectiously entertaining that only comes from perfect match of
topic and storyteller.” —Open Letters Monthly
“A magisterial second entry in this multivolume biography. He
integrates a massive body of newly available documents with extant
scholarship, comprehensively detailing the development of the
U.S.S.R. and the nature of Stalin’s rule. . . Kotkin’s account is a
hefty challenge, but an eminently worthwhile one.” —Publishers
Weekly, starred review
“A well-written, finely detailed installment in a definitive
biography—sure to receive many prize nominations this year.”
—Kirkus, starred review
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