Khrushchev, William Taubman
Khrushchev, William Taubman
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Khrushchev
The Man and His Era

Author: William Taubman

Narrator: David Stifel

Unabridged: 34 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/27/2022


Synopsis

The definitive biography of the mercurial Soviet leader who succeeded and denounced Stalin. Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most complex and important political figures of the twentieth century. Ruler of the Soviet Union during the first decade after Stalin's death, Khrushchev left a contradictory stamp on his country and on the world. His life and career mirror the Soviet experience: revolution, civil war, famine, collectivization, industrialization, terror, world war, cold war, Stalinism, post-Stalinism. Complicit in terrible Stalinist crimes, Khrushchev nevertheless retained his humanity: his daring attempt to reform communism prepared the ground for its eventual collapse; and his awkward efforts to ease the cold war triggered its most dangerous crises.

This is the first comprehensive biography of Khrushchev and the first of any Soviet leader to reflect the full range of sources that have become available since the USSR collapsed. Combining historical narrative with penetrating political and psychological analysis, this book brims with the life and excitement of a man whose story personified his era.

About William Taubman

William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Amherst College. His biography, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Brett on May 02, 2021

I was consistently impressed with this biography. The writing was well-developed and the content was well-researched. Nikita Khrushchev grew up a peasant and in rural poverty yet managed to climb to the apex of the Soviet hierarchy. His story is an interesting one and all the details along the way a......more

Goodreads review by Anthony on May 05, 2023

After Stalin. William Taubman’s biography of Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev took decades to write and takes the story of Russia up to the 1960s. The Revolution is a distant memory, Stalin is dead and the Cold War is in full swing. How do we look back and remember this larger than life character at the......more

Goodreads review by Joe on June 03, 2022

For many of us “Russian common-man” Nikita Khrushchev was the first human face of Soviet leadership – Lenin a grainy figure from newsreels or a corpse on display in a tomb; Josef Stalin a phantom figure seen with FDR and Churchill in pictures. In one news-clip breath Khrushchev was grinning gap-toot......more