Reviews

"[A] meticulously researched, authoritative biography of Stalin's early years . . . Montefiore offers a detailed picture of Stalin's childhood and youth, his shadowy career as a revolutionary in Georgia and his critical role during the October Revolution. No one, henceforth, need ever wonder how it was that Stalin found his way into Lenin's inner circle, or took his place in the ruling troika that assumed power after the storming of the Winter Palace"." . . Montefiore has worked his way with a fine-toothed comb through previously unread archival material in Russia and in Georgia . . . He successfully captures 'the sheer weird singularity of the man' and the lethal instincts that propelled him to the summit of power."
-William Grimes, "The New York Times
""The portrait of Stalin that emerges from these pages is more complete, more colorful, more chilling, and far more convincing than any we have had before . . . Montefiore is in a class of his own. As he did for "Stalin: The C