"Stalin: The Court Of The Red Tsar" by Simon Sebag Montefiore

[Fenris]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400042305/qid=1109366176/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-4336122-5007250?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Anyone read this?

I'm working on it for a class. I like it, but I find it quite heavy (both in content and in size). I'm reaching the end of Yezhov and the Terror, and it seems like the text is somewhat plodding through the whole purge. Not to say that it isn't interesting, but it just seems to be kind of bogged down in the slaughter. But that's just my interpretation.

Anyone else hear read this book (or part of it)?

[leveymg]

1. For a Break, Pick Up "Everyday Stalinism" - Very Readable

account of how Russians at all levels adjusted their lives, jobs, words, and thoughts to the challenges of life under Uncle Joe and the NKVD.

[Fenris]

3. Interesting. I'll have to check that out.

Thanks.

[JimmyJazz]

2. I'm reading "The Time of Stalin - Portrait of a Tyranny"

But I'm not far enough into it to have an opinion - but it seems rather readable. However, it's translated from Russian so there is always the problem of the languages not translating smoothly.

[Fenris]

4. Yeah, I felt that way about Joachim Fest's Hitler bio

It didn't feel smooth to me, although it had loads of great information.

[ramapo]

5. Just finished

It took me many weeks...I was only able to do a couple of chapters a night (on a good night). I just followed it up with Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" which I found by chance in a geocache. This book really showed the absurdity of Stalin's purges.

The book seems to be thoroughly researched. I've always been interested in Russian history but have never really dived in. I think this book qualifies as diving in. I read Kresge's biography about a year ago and that was very interesting but this really showed how the leaders of Russia squandered a chance to be a truly great country as they, based on paranoia, murdered tens of thousands for no good reason.

To put it simply Stalin was an incompetent, paranoid nut. He wasted untold numbers of Russians. I found it remarkable how on one hand he seemed to be a gentle, feeling person and on the other hand was a cold, brutal tyrant.

[ramapo]

6. Kresge? s/b Kruschev

I know I typed Kruschev...I blame spell check or the wine. Things always seeem clearer in the morning.

[crispini]

7. Denisovich: One of my fave books of all time.

Really quite gripping and a wonderful portrait of the human condition.

[Zappa]

8. Stalin

I read it and I thought it was excellent. It is the first Stalin bio with and insight into the day-to-day running of the Kremlin. The best information is from the post-WWII years; the pre-war era is a little more sketcy (mainly because so few people survived.)

There is a good bio on Yezhov out there:

http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/books/ezhov.html

Amy Knight has two excellent books on Beria and Kirov:

http://www.salon.com/books/review/1999/06/11/knight/

http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/5279.html

Finally, an excellent bio on Khrushchev that won the Pulitzer Prize:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?pwb=1&ean=9780393324846