The Death of Stalin
by Sheila Fitzpatrick
The Death of Stalin is by Sheila Fitzpatrick, a pioneer of Soviet history. By homing in on one event, Fitzpatrick manages to pack in an enormous amount of information about the history of the Soviet Union, including how the US approached its Cold War opponent, in less than 100 pages—and that even includes photos. It probably helps to watch the darkly comic Armando Iannucci movie, The Death of Stalin, before reading it, though as Fitzpatrick writes, “not everything about Stalin’s death is comic. It had serious implications for his country and the world in the twentieth century and beyond; this book sets out to unravel them.”
Recommendations from our site
“This is not the brilliant, funny movie by Armando Iannucci, or the comic book that the movie is based on (La Morte de Staline), even though they share the same title. Rather, it uses the moment of Stalin’s death to tell the story of the Soviet Union, on which Fitzpatrick is a leading historian. Again, you feel yourself in the hands of an expert to tell a story that still has serious implications for the present.” Read more...
Notable Nonfiction Books of Mid-2025
Sophie Roell, Journalist
Our most recommended books
-
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
by Christopher Browning -
The Confessions
by Augustine (translated by Maria Boulding) -
On War
by Carl von Clausewitz -
Life and Fate
by Vasily Grossman and translated by Robert Chandler -
Stalingrad
by Antony Beevor -
Histories
by Herodotus
