Hitler and Stalin - Parallel Lives

Information

By Alan Bullock

Published by Harper Collins, 1991

Hard cover with dustwrapper, some water stains on page edges on second half of book

Used – a solid reading copy

A monumental comparative study of the lives and careers of Hitler and Stalin by Britain’s most distinguished historian Allan Bullock.

Bullock gives his reasons for believing that the key to an understanding the character of Hitler & Stalin is the same and analyses the inner doctrine that made victory and unparalleled terror possible.

Taking into account all of the information that has emerged since 1952 and having synthesized it into a new masterly portrait, Bullock has brilliantly interwoven another biography entirely, of the man who was first Hitler’s wary collaborator and then his most deadly enemy.

The result is a devastating, gripping and entirely new book. Bullock builds the narrative by alternating chapters on Hitler and Stalin, showing how and why their careers developed as they did, what motivated them, how they were similar and how different. No more fruitful or illuminating approach to the life of either has yet to be written. And no author has come closer to understanding them; Bullock reveals here the reasons for his belief that the key to the character of each of them is the same. It is an achievement only the most mature and judicious historian could have attained.