A review by noah543
Stalin by Isaac Deutscher

slow-paced

2.0

Has some inaccuracies as discussed by Robert Tucker and others, partly just not acknowledging historian disagreement on certain areas, e.g. Stalin's parents. In his defence this is partly due to lack of resources (not sure why you'd write a Stalin biography in the 40s). Also think this wouldn't be great for people new to the area, Deutscher presumes some basic knowledge and doesn't explain events like the Kirov murder in detail. Mostly I just really dislike his writing style, I think it's unnecessarily convoluted and takes the interesting parts out of the subject. I also don't appreciate his random decision near the end of the book to just add a lot of french phrases. Even when they were cognates and easily understandable it was a bit odd and looked like he was just trying to make himself smart. Also his decision to make inferences on historical figures felt unnecessary ('Trosky must've been feeling.... At this point') and could've been ommitted, or at least not taken up multiple paragraphs/pages at a time. I also dislike his running metaphors. You made the point in the first sentence, don't continue it for ten pages. I'm not sure what I expected on a book that's so regularly cited for its issues though. Was worth the read for more knowledge on those references to it I guess but just not my favourite.