PositiveThe Washington PostIn Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941, a mammoth volume of more than 1,100 pages, Princeton University historian Stephen Kotkin presents in vivid, irresistible and unrelenting detail that part of Stalin’s life — and Soviet history — that has, more than any other, fascinated scholars and general readers about the Soviet experience … The very heft of the book, which is the second volume of a planned trilogy, testifies to Kotkin’s prodigious research and diligent assembling of material … The book has a hurried quality about it, so one appreciates those sections when, after masses of information and shocking stories of callous brutality, the author occasionally pauses and does the hard work of synthesis, interpretation and explanation.
