Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Victor Sebestyen is the internationally acclaimed author of TWELVE DAYS (W&N, 2006), REVOLUTION 1989 (W&N, 2009), LENIN THE DICTATOR (W&N 2017) and BUDAPEST (W&N, 2022). He was born in Budapest. He was a child when his family left Hungary as refugees. As a journalist, he worked for numerous British newspapers, including the Evening Standard, Daily Mail and The Times. He reported widely from Eastern Europe when Communism collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. He covered the wars in former Yugoslavia and the breakup of the Soviet Union. At the Evening Standard he was foreign editor, media editor and chief leader writer. He was an associate editor of Newsweek.An <b>excellent, original and compelling</b> portrait of Lenin as man and leader
- Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of <i>STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR</i>,
<b>Richly readable</b> ... enthralling but appalling
- Francis Wheen, MAIL ON SUNDAY
Victor Sebestyen brings the man's complexities to life in <i>Lenin the Dictator</i>, <b>balancing personality with politics in succinct and readable prose </b>... Sebestyen describes particularly keenly how this ruthless, domineering, often vicious man depended on three women to sustain him
- David Reynolds, NEW STATESMAN
The attention to detail is <b>flawless</b>
- Alex Larman, THE OBSERVER
The story of the Bolshevik revolution is <b>fascinating in several ways</b>, and Sebestyen does a good job of telling it ... entertaining
- Tibor Fischer, STANDPOINT
Can first-rate history read like a thriller? With <i>Lenin the Dictator</i> the journalist Victor Sebestyen has pulled off this rarest of feats. How did he do it? Start with <b>a Russian version of <i>House of Cards</i></b> and behold Vladimir Ilyich Lenin pre-empt Frank Underwood's cynicism and murderous ambition by 100 years. Add <b>meticulous research</b> by digging into Soviet archives, including those locked away until recently. Plow through 9.5 million words of Lenin's <i>Collected Works</i>. Finally, apply <b>a scriptwriter's knack for drama and suspense</b> that needs no ludicrous cliffhangers to enthrall history buffs and professionals alike
- Josef Joffe, NEW YORK TIMES
In this new biography, Victor Sebestyen gives <b>a vivid and rounded picture of Lenin the man</b> ... Sebestyen brings to the task a gift for narrative and for describing his rich cast of characters
- Margaret MacMillan, THE OLDIE
Victor Sebestyen does an impressive job of telling Lenin's life story ... it is a <b>highly readable</b> overview
- Evan Mawdsley, BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE
In his engagingly written biography the author ... c<b>aptures all the drama of Lenin's leadership </b>against<br />a background of imperial collapse, the ravages of war and the building of a dictatorship ... the Bolshevik leader emerges from these pages as a man unencumbered by critical self-awareness, by doubts or by any moral conflict over the extraordinary costs inflicted on others by the pursuit of his revolutionary goals
- Daniel Beer, GUARDIAN
<b>An enthralling portrait </b>of one of the key figures of the 20th century
MAIL ON SUNDAY </i>Summer Books<i>
A <b>fresh and powerful</b> portrait of Lenin, and at just the right time. As Bolshevik ideas and tactics return to world politics, Victor Sebestyen focuses our attention on the man who invented them
- Anne Applebaum, author of <i>RED FAMINE: STALIN'S WAR ON UKRAINE</i>,
<b>Page-turning and enlightening</b>
- Victoria Hislop,
An <b>excellent </b>new biography
- Saul David, EVENING STANDARD
In this insightful biography, Sebestyen examines the brilliant but ruthless personality whom journalists glorified and shows why the dictatorial government that Lenin imposed on his country made a nationwide cult of personality inevitable ... Readers see a great historical tragedy play out, however, as Russia's dying Red Tsar leaves his most bloody-minded lieutenant in prime position to take over the brutal police state he has forged. <b>A compelling portrait of an epoch-making figure</b>
- Bryce Christensen, BOOKLIST starred review
An <b>accessible, fair and marvellously written</b> biography that reinforces what we have learned in the past three decades ... For anyone interested in an introduction to the world's greatest revolutionary that draws on the latest research, Mr Sebestyen's Lenin would be the place to start
- Douglas Smith, WALL STREET JOURNAL
Lenin believed that the 'the political is the personal', and while in no way ignoring his political life, Sebestyen's focus will be on Lenin the man - a man who loved nature almost as much as he loved making revolution, and whose closest ties and friendships were with women. The long-suppressed story of his ménage a trois with his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and his mistress and comrade, Inessa Armand, reveals a different character to the coldly one-dimensional figure of legend.
Told through the prism of Lenin's key relationships, Sebestyen's lively biography casts a new light the Russian Revolution, one of the great turning points of modern history.
Read by Jonathan Aris
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