Young Stalin - Tapa dura

a gripping read.....the book provides a wealth of serious and scurrilous detail, creating a memorable portrait of one of the 20th century's greatest monsters. (Antony Beevor THE DAILY TELEGRAPH)

Montefiore brings Stalin to life (Vince Cable DAILY EXPRESS)

an outstanding book..... a triumph of research and storytelling. (Victor Sebestyen THE EVENING STANDARD)

'The story Montefiore has told requires the psychological penetration and social omniscience of a great novelist. Dickens once or twice peeps over the biographer's shoulder (Peter Conrad THE OBSERVER)

it is hard to imagine how this account can be improved on. Moreover, the narrative flows with insight and humour: YOUNG STALIN is a prequel that outshines even the COURT OF THE RED TSAR. (Donald Rayfield LITERARY REVIEW)

This picture of Stalin as a young poet is one of the revelations of Simon Sebag Montefiore's macabrely fascinating Young Stalin (Antonia Fraser THE MAIL ON SUNDAY)

Simon Sebag Montefiore's thrilling portrait of Stalin's youth. (Michael Burleigh THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH)

'on one level, this book does the important work of helping one understand exactly how the phenomena of Stalin and Stalinism came into existence: on another it¿s also a very good story, very well told¿ (Paul Fishmann WATERSTONE'S BOOK QUARTERLY)

The aim of any book is to inform, entertain, and be readable, and this book does so admirably, and frequently with a sense of humour. (Jennie Erdal THE SCOTSMAN)

What Montefiore gives us is a richly and fluently documented study of the chief terrorist in the making. (Robert Service THE SUNDAY TIMES)