About the Author

Robert Gellately is the Earl Ray Beck Professor of History at Florida State University and was the Bertelsmann Visiting Professor of Twentieth-Century Jewish Politics and History at Oxford University in 2004-05. He is the author of "The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933"-"1945" and "Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany." He lives in Tallahassee, Florida.

Reviews

"Sensible and sophisticated, scholarly and very readable. It's time to rip up the accepted versions of this terrible period and analyze it on the evidence that we now have. Gellately has done just that."
--Simon Sebag Montefiore, "The Washington Post
"
"Mr. Gellately sets a high standard for anyone writing about comparative dictatorship . . . Lucid prose and vivid examples make the book admirably accessible to non-specialists. But it also engages expertly in one of the most closely fought historiographical battles of past decades."
--"The Economist
"
"A most impressive account of the tragedies that befell the world during the first half of the twentieth century. Not the least merit of his book is that, unlike most historians who treat Lenin as a well-meaning idealist, he places him alongside Stalin and Hitler as a founder of modern barbarism."
--Richard Pipes, Baird Professor of History, Emeritus, Harvard University

"A very fine historian traces the deep historic connections between the presumed enemies, Communists and Nazis, noting their distinctiveness and similarities; a special virtue of his well-researched book is his emphasis on Lenin as the first monster in the monstrous period he depicts so well; the title notwithstanding, the book is also a social history of unprecedented suffering. A most readable and persuasive account, especially strong on the Soviet side."
--Fritz Stern, author of "Gold and Iron
"

"Mr. Gellately sets a high standard for anyone writing about comparative dictatorship . . . Lucid prose and vivid examples make the book admirably accessible to non-specialists. But it also engages expertly in one of the most closely fought historiographical battles of past decades."
--"The Economist
"
"A most impressive account of the tragedies that befell the world during the first half of the twentieth century. Not the least merit of his book is that, unlike most historians who treat Lenin as a well-meaning idealist, he places him alongside Stalin and Hitler as a founder of modern barbarism."
--Richard Pipes, Baird Professor of History, Emeritus, Harvard University
"A very fine historian traces the deep historic connections between the presumed enemies, Communists and Nazis, noting their distinctiveness and similarities; a special virtue of his well-researched book is his emphasis on Lenin as the first monster in the monstrous period he depicts so well; the title notwithstanding, the book is also a social history of unprecedented suffering. A most readable and persuasive account, especially strong on the Soviet side."
--Fritz Stern, author of "Gold and Iron
"

" A most impressive account of the tragedies that befell the world during the first half of the twentieth century. Not the least merit of his book is that, unlike most historians who treat Lenin as a well-meaning idealist, he places him alongside Stalin and Hitler as a founder of modern barbarism."
--Richard Pipes, Baird Professor of History, Emeritus, Harvard University
" A very fine historian traces the deep historic connections between the presumed enemies, Communists and Nazis, noting their distinctiveness and similarities; a special virtue of his well-researched book is his emphasis on Lenin as the first monster in the monstrous period he depicts so well; the title notwithstanding, the book is also a social history of unprecedented suffering. A most readable and persuasive account, especially strong on the Soviet side."
--Fritz Stern, author of "Gold and Iron
"