Stalin
The Court of the Red Tsar
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Stalin
Narrated by:
Jonathan Aris
Buy Now for £16.99
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Aris
About this listen
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.©2003 Simon Sebag Montefiore
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Critic reviews
One of the two outstanding books of the year ... the most civilised and elegant chronicle of brutality and ruthlessness I have ever read, its prose cool and clear but never indifferent
Horrific, revelatory and sobering ... triumph of research and should be required reading in Russia. Book of the Year (John Le Carre)
This grim masterpiece, shot through with lashes of black humour ... The personal details are riveting (Antonia Fraser)
Have you read Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar? It's scarier than a Stephen King novel!
Fascinating ... [Montefiore] concentrates, as any good historian should, on pushing forward the boundaries of our knowledge of the subject ... [He] provides rich detail of daily life and family relationships in a world of human values turned inside out ... scrupulously fair in the way he describes Stalin's qualities - including his ability to charm, his uncanny grasp of geopolitical issues, his brilliant handling of foreign statesmen and his genuine passion for literature (Antony Beevor)
Masterful and terrifying account of Stalin ... seldom has the picture been put in finer focus than by Sebag Montefiore. It is partly through his diligent interviews with the children of survivors and his admirable combination of history and gossip that one sees the awful banality, the brutal crudity of the men who carelessly sent so many millions to their senseless deaths
This magnificent portrait ... Montefiore has mined the rich veins of recent Russian writing on the Stalin age and of newly opened archives to give us an intimate history ... The stifling, contiguous life of the Soviet elite in and around the Kremlin is wonderfully conveyed, in some of the most striking and literary passages in the book ... A wonderfully rich and vibrant portrait of the Stalinist elite who lived in the shadow of a remarkable and dangerous colossus
Read it or face social Siberia ... a cross-over success. Academically and intellectually rigorous, it's also a riveting read ... it takes a great writer to make it seem fresh. And Sebag Montefiore certainly does that ... his greatest achievement has been to "humanise" Stalin. Uncle Joe was a mass murderer and a paranoid sociopath. But he was also charming, friendly and flirtatious (100 Best Things in the World Right Now)
Grimly brilliant (Andrew Marr)
Excellent ... This book is like a vast Russian novel full of characters, colour, terror, passion and treachery ... love affairs, marriages, divorces, imprisonments and killings (Susannah Tarbush)
Montefiore has managed to get inside the mind of the 20th century's worst mass murderer. What he has found there will affect your view of human nature ... a thoughtful book of first-class scholarship as well as a transfixing narrative ... vividly recreated by Montefiore's caustically witty prose (Andrew Roberts)
As such my knowledge was pretty limited and I sometimes struggled to keep track of all the names of the different people as the author goes into great detail about pretty much everyone involved in the story. The audio book comes with a pdf with lists of the different people but it's quite hard to read. That being said it was a very well documented book and was so interesting I completed it in a matter of weeks.
Basically if you're coming into this as a Novice on the era as I was just be prepared to have to stop the book a few times to look up certain people and remind yourself of who they are.
If you've never looked at anything to do with Starlin I'd maybe watch a couple of docs or something first just to give you a little bit of base information before you get started.
But it is great I was never bored and learnt so much. Honestly if I could give it more than 5 stars I would.
Great
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A must listen
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Fascinating history
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Tremendous Audio
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Great read
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