Reviews

"Kirkus," Starred Review
"A chillingly systematic study of the mass murder mutually perpetrated by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.... A significant work of staggering figures and scholarship."Professor Norman Davies, F.B.A., author of "Europe: A History" "Nearly seventy years after VE-Day, World War Two continues to be perceived through a narrow Western perspective, and many basic problems about the war of 1939-45 remain unresolved. In "Bloodlands" - which refers to the huge belt of territory between Germany and Russia - Timothy Snyder examines the little known tract of the European continent that was scourged by Stalin as well as Hitler, and reaches some disturbing conclusions. Combining formidable linguistic and detective skills with a fine sense of impartiality, he tackles vital questions which have deterred less courageous historians: Where and when were the largest casualties inflicted? Who were the perpetrators, and which ethnic and national groups were victimized? How can one calculate and verify the numbers? This is a book which will force its readers to rethink history." Christopher R. Browning, Frank Porter Graham Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: "Historians of Nazi Germany have analyzed Hitler's war of destruction in the East, Final Solution, and vast racial revolution and colonization project outlined in the Generalplan Ost. Historians of the Soviet Union have analyzed Stalin's collectivization, Great Terror, Gulag archipelago, deportation and exile of mistrusted minorities, and rapid sovietization of newly-annexed territories on the western border. In both cases the focus has been more often on the politics and decision-making of the dictatorships than on the fate of their victims. The stunning contribution of Tim Snyder's book is to present a synthetic account by an East European historian in which the focus is on the geographic zone where the lethal policies of Hitler and Stalin interacted, overlapped, and mu