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Summary: Stalin and Hitlers: Parallel Lives
Review: This book leaves absolutely nothing out. I have read an enormous amount about Hitler and the entire nazi era. The book was extremley inciteful about Stalin as well . It is truly amazing and exciting to read about both these men simultaneously while they are being compared from birth all the way until the end of each life. It is also great how when Hitler dies , the author still talks about Stalin until his death because this is still the era of both men. I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: Excellent
Review: This dual biography is excellent. Bullock is an excellent writer with an uncluttered style and the content of this book reflects Bullock's considered judgements based on a careful reading of a large volume of scholarship. The balance between the narratives of Hitler's and Stalin's lives, explanations of the relevant contemporary history, and efforts at psychological insight is excellent. While a very thick book, it is a gripping read.
Bullock shows very well the distinct courses of Hitler's and Stalin's lives, a function both of their very different circumstances and personalities. Hitler rose to power in a partially democratized society, his success based on charismatic leadership, demagogic mass politics, and shrewd exploitation of the political weaknesses of his opponents. Once in power, he delegated power to trusted subordinates and presided over an anarchic state composed of competing power centers jockeying for his approval. Stalin, on the other hand, was a consummate bureaucrat and backroom politician. A tireless worker and master political infighter, he largely constructed the state apparatus that was the instrument of his power. His serial purges had the effect of elimnating any potential rival seats of power.
The major question, of course, is why produce a combined biography instead of 2 separate books? It is true that Hitler's and Stalin's lives intersected in very important ways but these issues could easily have been handled in separate books. The advantage of Bullock's approach is that it demonstrates, both implicitly and explicitly, the convergence of the Nazi and Stalinist states. Both were based on personal rule, crude but powerful ideological constructs that held the loyalty of the leaders and numerous followers, ruthless repression, and both states produced results that garned significant popular support. Both were constructed by monsters with considerable insight into human nature but no real sympathy for their fellow men. Both leaders were incredible egoists. Bullock uses the term narcissism in its clinical sense to describe both Hitler and Stalin, who saw the states they led as extensions of themselves. Not surprisingly then, in the depth and organization of repression and many other features, the Nazi and Stalinist states had major similarities. These basic patterns can be seen in many tyrannical states throughout human history and are independent of ideology.
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Summary: Keith A. Layton
Review: To describe Sir Alan Bullock's Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives as a duel biography does not do it justice. It is no less than a history of the formation and evolution of the most violent and pathological dictatorships in the history the world, and an understanding of these dictatorships is necessary to an understanding of the twentieth century.However, Sir Alan Bullock tells this story primarily through the two men whose efforts, paranoias, prejudicies, and impressive if ultimately evil intellects made their regimes possible. Without a doubt, he tells their stories masterfully, interweaving their lives within the context of twentieth century history and ideas yet maintaining their distinct personal and political identities, talents, and mistakes. His book is both interesting narrative and unquie analytical fair for both the general reader and specialist.In their latest book, Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison, Sir Ian Kershaw and Moshe Levin write of their subjects:"Studying the history of inhumanity, perpetrated on such a vast, unprecedented scale, has an emotional and psychological cost. It is not like studying the history of philosohpy, the Renaissance, or the age of the cathedrals. The subject matter is less uplifting than almost any other conceivable topic of historical enquiry. But it is history al the same. And it is important. The emotional involvement has to be contained, even when the very effort to arrive at some balanced and reasoned interpretation seems an affront. . . There is nothing else . . . than to adhere to scholarly methods in the hope that knowledge might inform action to prevent any conceivable repetition of such political pathologies as characterised Stalinism and Nazism."With his most recent work, Sir Alan Bullock has gone a long way toward achieving the ideals set forth by Kershaw and Lewin. I highly recommend this book
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Summary: Alan Bullock's Masterful Dual Biography Of Hitler & Stalin!
Review: What is most fascinating about this novel dual biographical approach toward understanding both Hitler and Stalin is the startling degree to which such an unorthodox approach illuminates one's understanding not only of their remarkable similarities, but also their philosophical, tactical, and personal differences. This truly is a fascinating and absorbing book, and it is well enough written that the narrative seems to spin along on its own strength, and we find ourselves captivated by the degree to which these two seem star-crossed in terms of their destinies. As Bullock deftly illustrates, the main differences between the two dictators were found in their personalities. Yet, even after all these crucial differences in both personal style and substance are considered, the degree to which they were similar is both remarkable and frightening to comprehend. Stalin was a creature of bureaucracy, the ultimate insider, someone who knew how to use the organization bonding the Communist Party together for his own rise to prominence and power, an increasingly clever, adroit, and masterful practitioner of power politics. He was nothing if not careful, cautious, deliberate, and shrewd. Hitler, on the other hand, was a gambler, a masterful politician, a bold, easily bored, and endlessly distracted dreamer whose natural ability to charm, captivate, and enchant helped him to rise by extraordinary means. In many ways, these men came to prominence in quite different ways; Stalin, by mastering the art of bureaucratic manipulation and quietly assuming key roles within the organization that gave him friendships, alliances, and information that he used masterfully to rise through the ranks of the faithful, and Hitler, the manic-depressive natural leader whose charismatic popular appeal and desperate, authoritarian, and often violent measures were used to gain political power through extraordinary means. Yet Bullock shows how similar both men were in terms of the way they used their power once established to execute their national responsibilities, and in the way they ruthlessly pursued their goals without mercy, remorse or any concern for others who suffered for their sake. Both used extralegal means to maintain position, both cruelly purged potential rivals through purges or political overthrows. Both bordered on being psychotic; Hitler coming close to being declared certifiably insane, and Stalin by having all the symptoms of classic paranoia. Certainly both had personal histories that can most kindly be described as bizarre in terms of the ways in which they treated those close to them as well as the populace in general. Both also seemed convinced of their own central and unique role in terms of their country's destiny, and indeed each identified his own importance in terms of succeeding in accomplishing that historical mission. Also, both were guilty of massive crimes against humanity, both against the opposing forces they captured and their own subjects. Hitler persecuted German citizens who were Jewish, Gypsies, or otherwise "undesirables", while Stalin persecuted Ukrainians in general and peasant farmers in particular, not to mention the systematic purges of thousands of Army, Navy, and Air Force officers he or his cronies suspected of potential disloyalty. This is a wonderful book in terms of its insights, unusual research sources, and provocative speculations regarding each of these two quite unique historical figures. The narrative carries itself in an entertaining, edifying, and comprehensible fashion, and his use of photographs and maps serves the text well. All in all, I would have to describe this book as a must-read for anyone seriously interested in how the personalities and characteristics of these two key leaders in 20th century history figured into the unholy calculus of madness and mayhem, otherwise referred to as World War Two. I highly recommend it. Enjoy!
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