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The Last Days of Stalin
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
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Publisher's summary
A scholarly, absorbing narrative of Stalin's last days and the turbulent wake of his dictatorship.
Joshua Rubenstein's riveting account takes us back to the second half of 1952, when no one could foresee an end to Joseph Stalin's murderous regime. He was poised to challenge the newly elected US president, Dwight Eisenhower, with armed force and was also broadening a vicious campaign against Soviet Jews. Stalin's sudden collapse and death in March 1953 was as dramatic and mysterious as his life. It is no overstatement to say that his passing marked a major turning point in the 20th century.
The Last Days of Stalin is an engaging, briskly told account of the dictator's final active months, the vigil at his deathbed, and the unfolding of Soviet and international events in the months after his death. Rubenstein throws fresh light on the devious plotting of Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, and other "comrades-in-arms" who well understood the significance of the dictator's impending death; the witness-documented events of his death as compared to official published versions; Stalin's rumored plans to forcibly exile Soviet Jews; the responses of Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles to the Kremlin's conciliatory gestures after Stalin's death; and the momentous repercussions when Stalin's regime of terror was cut short.
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Book Great Read. Narrator Horrible-slow dead voice
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By: Jonathan Fenby
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The Devils' Alliance
- Hitler's Pact With Stalin, 1939-1941
- By: Roger Moorhouse
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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History remembers the Soviets and the Nazis as bitter enemies and ideological rivals - the two opposing totalitarian regimes of World War II whose conflict would be the defining and deciding clash of the war. Yet for nearly a third of the conflict's entire timespan, Hitler and Stalin stood side by side as partners.
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Fascinating look at much neglected peiod
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By: Roger Moorhouse
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A Problem From Hell
- America and the Age of Genocide
- By: Samantha Power
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In her award-winning interrogation of the last century of American history, Samantha Power - a former Balkan war correspondent and founding executive director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy - asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders who vow “never again” repeatedly fail to stop genocide?
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A dark lesson in dramatic irony
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By: Samantha Power
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Hitler
- A Biography
- By: Ian Kershaw
- Narrated by: Alan Robertson
- Length: 46 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. From his illegitimate birth in a small Austrian village to his fiery death in a bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler left a murky trail, strewn with contradictory tales and overgrown with self-created myths. One truth prevails: the sheer scale of the evils that he unleashed on the world has made him a demonic figure without equal in the 20th century.
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An Excellent Read
- By Rodney on 09-19-13
By: Ian Kershaw
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The Empire Must Die
- Russia's Revolutionary Collapse, 1900 - 1917
- By: Mikhail Zygar
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 22 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The window between two equally stifling autocracies - the imperial family and the communists - was open only briefly, in the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of WWI, by which time the revolution was in full fury. From the last years of Tolstoy until the death of the Tsar and his family, however, Russia experimented with liberalism and cultural openness. Novelists and playwrights blossomed and political ideas were swapped in coffee houses.
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An excellent look at an interesting history.
- By brian on 06-22-18
By: Mikhail Zygar
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A Savage War of Peace
- Algeria 1954-1962
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- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 29 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused the fall of six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict, and as many European settlers were driven into exile. From the perspective of half a century, it looks less like the last colonial war than the first postmodern one.
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Excellent history of France's Viet Nam
- By David on 04-10-16
By: Alistair Horne
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A Covert Action
- Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland
- By: Seth G. Jones
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In this gripping narrative history, Seth G. Jones reveals the CIA's involvement in a landmark victory for democracy during the Cold War. In 1983, while Soviet- backed Polish prime minister Wojciech Jaruzelski worked to crush a budding opposition movement through martial law, the CIA launched a sophisticated intelligence campaign supporting dissident groups. With President Ronald Reagan's support, American funds bankrolled clandestine newspapers, broadcasting, and information warfare. This initiative, code-named QRHELPFUL, proved vital in establishing a free and democratic Poland.
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A passionate true story
- By Chris Cembrzynski on 02-15-19
By: Seth G. Jones
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The Last Empire
- The Final Days of the Soviet Union
- By: Serhii Plokhy
- Narrated by: Alex Wyndham
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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On Christmas, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: Earlier that day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took center stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush's speech and has persisted for decades. As Serhii Plokhy reveals, the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the US.
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Full of Holes; Horrid Narrator
- By Donald on 03-02-23
By: Serhii Plokhy
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Berlin 1961
- Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth
- By: Frederick Kempe
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 20 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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A former Wall Street Journal editor and the current president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, Frederick Kempe draws on recently released documents and personal interviews to re-create the powder keg that was 1961 Berlin. In Cold War Berlin, the United States and the Soviet Union stand nose to nose, with the possibility of nuclear war just one misstep away.
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I am scared in retrospect
- By theenglishmajor on 06-26-11
By: Frederick Kempe
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Nixon and Mao
- The Week That Changed the World
- By: Margaret MacMillan
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
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- Unabridged
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Margaret MacMillan brings her extraordinary gifts to two of the most important countries today, the United States and China, and one of the most significant moments in modern history: Richard Nixon's week in China in February 1972, which opened relations between America and China (closed since the communists came to power in 1949).
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Incisive
- By Roy on 08-23-10
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The Death of Democracy
- Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic
- By: Benjamin Carter Hett
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In this dramatic audiobook, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time. Benjamin Carter Hett is one of America’s leading scholars of 20th-century Germany and a gifted storyteller whose portraits of the feckless politicians of the Weimar Republic show how fragile democracy can be when those in power do not respect it.
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I can't trust the author's account of these events
- By Example: Mark Twain on 11-10-19
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insightful
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What listeners say about The Last Days of Stalin
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- L. Abraham
- 06-10-16
Extremely interesting
If you could sum up The Last Days of Stalin in three words, what would they be?
Very interesting and easy to listen to. I love it.
What did you like best about this story?
Additional information; research is obviously well done.
Have you listened to any of Arthur Morey’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I have not.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
I did not expect to.
Any additional comments?
I will look for more recordings by Morey and books by Rubenstein.
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4 people found this helpful
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- James F. Hannon
- 11-02-21
Very informative book
Very informative book I doubt if I could’ve ever achieved we enter the cold war with Soviet leaders they were still stuck in Marxist ones ideology
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- Kenzo
- 11-17-21
A superb history
Fascinating study if a short period in history when there was a thaw in US Soviet relations, with superb analysis and wonderfully read
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- KM
- 05-08-22
Solid meh
The opening was great. I didn’t understand how the rest of the book was organized. It jumped all over the place time wise.
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- brian
- 04-29-16
An excellent overview of the final days of Stalin.
If you could sum up The Last Days of Stalin in three words, what would they be?
Detailed, excellent, well.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Everyone, even Stalin himself.
What didn’t you like about Arthur Morey’s performance?
It only seems to be narration, no accents, nothing that interested me.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes.
Any additional comments?
A must-have for fans of the USSR's history.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Dolce Momento
- 10-24-24
Very informative and well told
The book is well researched and informative. It is a scholarly but not didactic account of the days leading to Stalin’s death and the aftermath. Quite absorbing.
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- Ezra Ogorek
- 01-03-21
Great Listen
This is a well written history about a time when the course of the Cold War could have been much different.
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- Daniel Loring Maddux
- 11-28-23
Very interesting insight into Stalin's leadership
The book taught me quite a few things about the latter days of Stalin's dictatorship. It was a very worthwhile listen!
The only downside was that the narrative lost pace and direction at times, seeming to resort to a mere recitation of events.
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- Jonathan R. Zeko
- 07-05-16
What happened after Stalin died?
What did you love best about The Last Days of Stalin?
It was efficiently well-written and well read.
Would you recommend The Last Days of Stalin to your friends? Why or why not?
Yes if they have some knowledge about Stalin's importance.
Have you listened to any of Arthur Morey’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No. He is a good narrator.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
It's not the kind of book that moves you. Most of the people are Soviet thugs.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-17-22
disappointing, factual, slow
Too much repetition. Really moved slowly even for a historical narrative. Was kind of disappointed.
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