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hollyzone 's review for:
Young Stalin
by Simon Sebag Montefiore
An interesting, well told, and thoroughly researched work on one of History's most dedicated obscurantists. It was almost as interesting to read the footnotes covering the lengths Stalin went to hide the stories within this book as it was to read the actual events, escapades and outrages themselves.
There is a game attempt to explain how he managed to become such a devastating figure for the countries of the USSR, how his past shaped him, and how the opportunities on offer were seized by a determined and ruthless individual. There were even a few moments which made me laugh, which seems unlikely to occur in such a story, but they never felt inappropriate.
It is a vivid, world-setting account of a series of times and places which were probably unknown even to the vast majority of the people Stalin would come to rule. Sebag Montefiore seems to have a particular talent for evoking the hustle and bustle of daily life in the places Stalin found himself either living or disrupting.
There is a game attempt to explain how he managed to become such a devastating figure for the countries of the USSR, how his past shaped him, and how the opportunities on offer were seized by a determined and ruthless individual. There were even a few moments which made me laugh, which seems unlikely to occur in such a story, but they never felt inappropriate.
It is a vivid, world-setting account of a series of times and places which were probably unknown even to the vast majority of the people Stalin would come to rule. Sebag Montefiore seems to have a particular talent for evoking the hustle and bustle of daily life in the places Stalin found himself either living or disrupting.