Books: November 2022

Stalin: Waiting for Hitler 1929-1941 — Stephen Kotkin

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Sets up an interesting puzzle: why the terror? The author makes a good case that Stalin’s terror stands apart from conventional autocrat “coup-proofing”. But in the end there’s no answer. And just as suddenly, it stops.

Interesting to read after Bloodlands, which in focusing so much on Stalin’s crimes misses a lot of the geopolitical strategy at play between Germany, the USSR, and England.