This captivating book completely changes how we think about Stalin as the Soviet dictator, Marxist leader, and Russian tsar throughout the horrific decades of his absolute reign. Simon Sebag Montefiore's riveting account of this hidden world's dread and treachery, privilege and excess, family life and homicidal violence is based on ground-breaking research. This superb work of scholarly investigation, which was written with extraordinary narrative vivacity, has become a classic of contemporary history writing. This is an intimate depiction of a man who was as complex and human as he was harsh and terrifying, demonstrating how Stalin's successes and atrocities were the result of his ardent Marxism and his gifted but imperfect temperament.