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S'està carregant… Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (2003)de Simon Sebag Montefiore
Favourite Books (1,146) Five star books (819) S'està carregant…
Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. Hard to put down this history of the Stalin years. This book is well written and very interesting. ( ) At first I had some qualms with this book, but after the first 100 pages or so, I became engrossed that I dismissed my earlier criticisms as nitpicking and embraced this wonderful book. Sebag Montefiore has a way with words so that even if the narrative gets bogged down in a dizzying sea of convoluted intrigue and overlarge cast, it still keeps me avidly turning the page. His wicked sense of humor and often bombastic diction had me laughing out loud many times -- an amazing accomplishment considering how much I loathed basically every adult character in Stalin's "court." If you are even remotely interested in Stalin, dictators or paranoid narcissist mass murderers in general, this is the book for you. Montefiore (The Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin) is more interested in life at the top than at the bottom, so he includes hundreds of pages on Stalin's purges of top Communists, while devoting much less space to the forced collectivization of Soviet peasants that led to millions of deaths. In lively prose, he intersperses his mammoth account of Stalin's often-deadly political decisions with the personal lives of the Soviet dictator and those around him. As a result, the reader learns about sexual peccadilloes of the top Communists: Stalin's secret police chief Lavrenti Beria, for one, "craved athletic women, haunting the locker rooms of Soviet swimmers and basketball players." Stalin's own escapades after the death of his wife are also noted. There's also much detail about the food at parties and other meetings of Stalin's henchmen. The effect is paradoxical: Stalin and his cronies are humanized at the same time as their cruel misdeeds are recounted. Montefiore offers little help in answering some of the unsettled questions surrounding Stalin: how involved was he in the 1934 murder of rising official Sergei Kirov, for example. He also seems to leave open the question of Stalin's paranoia: he argues that the Georgian-born ruler was a charming man who used his people skills to get whatever he wanted. Montefiore mainly skirts the paranoia issue, noting that only after WWII, when Stalin launched his anti-Semitic campaigns, did he "become a vicious and obsessional anti-Semite." There are many Stalin biographies out there, but this fascinating work distinguishes itself by its extensive use of fresh archival material and its focus on Stalin's ever-changing coterie. Maps and 24 pages of photos not seen by PW. Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
Pertany a aquestes sèriesStalin (1) PremisLlistes notables
Referències a aquesta obra en fonts externes. Wikipedia en anglès (31)Winner of the British Book Awards History Book of the Year Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize This thrilling biography of Stalin and his entourage during the terrifying decades of his supreme power transforms our understanding of Stalin as Soviet dictator, Marxist leader and Russian tsar. Based on groundbreaking research, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals in captivating detail the fear and betrayal, privilege and debauchery, family life and murderous cruelty of this secret world. Written with extraordinary narrative verve, this magnificent feat of scholarly research has become a classic of modern history writing. Showing how Stalin's triumphs and crimes were the product of his fanatical Marxism and his gifted but flawed character, this is an intimate portrait of a man as complicated and human as he was brutal and chilling. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)947History and Geography Europe Russia and eastern Europe [and formerly Finland]LCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
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