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 *
This meticulous volume. -- Gavin Bowd * SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY *
this magnificent 'prequel -- Jonathan Mirsky * THE SPECTATOR *
Montefiore's wonderfully readable book -- Hugh Barnes * THE NEW STATESMAN *
'In showing the boy brigand, he illuminates, uniquely, the elements - diverse and contradictory as they are - that fathered the man-monster; one who, even as he ruled absolutely and exercised, liberally, the power of life and death, probably always felt the outcasst about whom he wrote a moving poem.' -- Nicholas Fortune * THE HERALD *
On practically every page of Young Stalin, there is a reason to smile with satisfaction at the thrust of revelation and often a reason to gasp or even chuckle. The overall impression is of Carlylean energy with the prose torrenting along. (Montefiore) dazzles. As quasi-academic populist biography goes, this is as good as it gets -- Christopher Silvester * THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY *
The author cannot be faulted for industry. With help from Russians and Georgians, he has dug up a pile of new information?. An attractive book? what a complex monster. * THE ECONOMIST *
Important and fascinating -- Sebastian Shakespeare * TATLER *
Following his extraordinary 2004 Stalin biog, the brilliant Montefiore tackles the dictator's youth in Young Stalin * GQ *
an engrossing popular history.. while magnificently entertaining, it reveals the complexity of historical conditions that forge revolutions and their leader.' -- Carol Rumens * THE INDEPENDENT *
Magnificent! A masterpiece of detail. Montefiore has unearthed documents long lost in Georgian archives, found the descendants of Soso's friends and produced a vivid psychological portrait of this dangerous, alluring, enigmatic man who like Macacity could vanish from the scenes of the outrages he masterminded. This book moves with pace and authority. -- Michael Binyon * THE TIMES *
A rare treat. A book that commands and deserves our attention. It also succeeds triumphantly in cleaning away much of the grime from the portrait of a man who is no longer an icon of our movement. It is a book of exceptional scholarship ...... written in a gripping and elegant style that combines a novelist?s flair ? with a level of reasoned sustained and unsensational argument that is often demanded of, but seldom realised by, top flight academic historians. -- Dr John Callow * THE MORNING STAR *
Montefiore's brilliantly researched and readable portrait? gives us Stalin with a Mauser in his belt, Stalin the rabblerouser, bankrobber and Marxist conspirator, Stalin the tireless scholar. The picture that emerges is more colourful, more chilling and above all more credible? ? Anyone who wants to understand the shaping of one of history?s bloodiest dictators must read this original and thought-provoking book -- Catherine Merridale * THE GUARDIAN *
The intellectual?s beach read this summer, a groundbreaking work of thrilling energy and scholastic thoroughness that has turned up a wealth of new material on the early sexual, political and criminal career of Josef Stalin. -- Elizabeth Grice * THE DAILY TELEGRAPH *
A thrilling account not just of the man but the highly-charged history from which he emerged. Montefiore brings his own superbly novelistic flair to this prequel to his bestselling Stalin biography. -- Clare Alfree * METRO *
A gripping but dark Boy?s Own adventure, packed with bombs, violence and treachery. Full of fascinating nuggets * THE FINANCIAL TIMES *
Stalin's story is told with great verve and freshness by Mr Montefiore. It provides real insight into this poisonous personality and will be hard for any other author to surpass -- Simon Heffer * COUNTRY LIFE *
'this excellent book.' -- Roger Lewis * THE DAILY EXPRESS *
'Montefiore has found an extraordinary amount of new material that gives human colour to his narrative and he writes with unusual zest. -- Paul Anderson * TRIBUNE *
a fascinating book and an absorbing read that throws real light on the formation of a dictator. -- Carla King * THE IRISH TIMES *
A mass of contradictions he (Stalin) is brought to life in this superb biography. -- Martin McCauley * HISTORY TODAY *
A portrait that defies the cliched image of the megalomaniacal Georgian peasant * DAILY TELEGRAPH (audiobook review) *
Doggedly researched and compelling biography of the poet and ladies man who became a monster. * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY *
Exuberant study of a monster in the making. * THE SUNDAY TIMES *
Full of the most amazing new information about the early years of the monster. * THE EVENING STANDARD *
[This] substantial book shines a stark light into the murky underworld of Stalin's revoluntary apprenticeship.' * THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE *
