Repressive states tend to like their authors best when they are safely dead. Joseph Stalin admired Nikolai Gogol but criticized him as a reactionary. During World War II, to boost morale, Stalin’s ...

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts. Stalin was ‘A very, very exceptional man, in every sense. That may not ...

Having gained access to secret documents in Russia’s archives, biographer Edvard Radzinsky wrote a comprehensive biography about Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) who, after dismantling the tsarist regime, ...

Edward Gibbon sits proudly upon my bookshelf. A set of volumes that I own, neatly stacked, comprises his “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” What do you make of me because it is ...