Stalin's Curse draws on up-to-date secondary literature and recent documentary collections. It is a powerful work of synthesis.
Professor Robert Service, the New Statesman
Mr Gellately's latest work has a good claim to be the best single-volume account of the darkest period in Russian history.
The Economist
graphically and succinctly told ... The narrative is compelling.
Donald Rayfield, Literary Review
[An] outstanding work A prominent historian of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, Gellately offers a panoramic view of Stalin's political, diplomatic and psychological manoeuvres that allowed the USSR to achieve superpower status. The author has an encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject and provides a compelling narrative of deception, brutality, foolishness and betrayed idealism.
Vladimir Tismaneanu, Times Higher Education
Incisive work
Joseph C. Goulden, The Washington Times
Masterful ... this book should become a go-to read on how the Cold War developed
Library Journal
An impeccably researched and cogently argued book
Andrew Roberts, Wall Street Journal
Thoroughly researched, Gellately's fine contribution to Cold War studies will engage readers with its inside-the-Kremlin detail.
Booklist
Gellately ... adds to his distinguished body of work on 20th-century totalitarianism with this analysis ... Interweaving scholarship and the testimonies of those who suffered under Stalin's rule, [his] history is political and personal.
Publishers' Weekly
eloquently tells the story of the astonishing transformation in the global fortunes of Communist rule in the wake of a devastating war, and of the central role of Stalin in this process.
Tim Rees, English Historical Review