Sean McMeekin is a professor of history at Bard College. The award-winning author of several books, including Stalin's War, The Russian Revolution, and July 1914, McMeekin lives in Clermont, New York.
"McMeekin's Stalin's War is such a mind-blowing assault on the
conventional narrative that I'm fairly certain it's not even
legal."--Austin Bramwell, former trustee of the National Review
"Stalin's War is a magnificent book and everyone interested in the
causes and consequences of World War II--and what reasonable person
could not be?--should read it."--David Gordon, Mises Wire
"An independent-minded and immensely learned historian, McMeekin
demonstrates the extent of Soviet brutality and treachery before
and during WWII."--Paul Gottfried, Chronicles
"Fast-paced and well-written ... A gifted writer and a talented
polemicist."
--Inside Story
"Impressively researched and well-written."--Washington
Examiner
"In the eyes of many Russians today, the Soviet Union's victory in
World War Two still legitimizes Josef Stalin's bloody dictatorship.
In this brilliant and provocative history, Sean McMeekin takes on
Stalin's legend, demonstrating, among other things, that the
Western allies, and especially the United States, were far more
critical to Stalin's victory than Soviet propaganda then or later
would ever acknowledge. This book will change the way readers
understand Stalin's War."--Walter Russell Mead, Global View
Columnist, Wall Street Journal
"McMeekin writes well and has the language skills to comb through a
huge amount of archival material... There is much interesting
detail about allied supplies to Russia, the Warsaw Uprising of
August 1944, the Soviet plunder of Germany in 1945, and the war
with Japan."
--Irish Times
"McMeekin's book is, on top of making for great reading, a timely
reminder that victory in a war does not end geopolitical
competition and international conflict."--Jakub Grygiel, Law &
Liberty
"The ambitious sweep of Hastings, Roberts and Beevor, but much else
besides... McMeekin chooses to see Stalin as the central figure in
the conflict, rather than Hitler."--Ian Thomson, The Tablet
"This remarkable book... meticulously researched, elegantly
written... Stalin's War is that rare thing: a book that forces us
to think again, and to challenge our narrative of that most
well-trodden subject."--BBC History Magazine
"Sean McMeekin's revisionist Stalin's War: A New History of World
War II isn't just one of the most compelling histories written
about the war this year, it's one of the best ever. I doubt anyone
who reads it will think about the Second World War in the same
way."--David Harsanyi, The Federalist's Notable Books of 2021
"[A] well-written book...the product of massive research involving
every detail of the war. Stalin is intimately painted in all his
colours."--Eurasia Review
"Based on a vast amount of research."--Prospect (UK)
"In considering the war from a global perspective and shifting the
focus from a Eurocentric view, he [McMeekin] provides a refreshing
corrective that takes in areas of the war often overlooked by
westerners." --The Spectator (UK)
"Often thought of as 'Hitler's War, ' the Second World War is here
reexamined with Russian documents that only recently became
available....The book pulls no punches in describing the many
atrocities, including those against Poles and Germans, that Soviet
troops committed....Thoroughly researched."--Library Journal
"The volume is impressive even by the standard of histories of the
second world war...The book is well researched and very well
written. It puts forward new ideas and revives some old ones to
challenge current mainstream interpretations of the conflict... a
new look at the conflict, which poses new questions and, one should
add, provides new and often unexpected answers to the old
ones."--Guardian
"Indispensable... There are new books every year that promise 'a
new history' of such a well-studied subject as World War II, but
McMeekin actually delivers on that promise."--Christian Science
Monitor
"Brilliantly inquisitive."--National Review
"McMeekin is a superb writer. There isn't a boring page in the
book. His familiarity with the archives of several countries is
extraordinary."--The Times (UK)
"A provocative revisionist take on the Second World War...an
accomplished, fearless, and enthusiastic 'myth buster'...McMeekin
is a formidable researcher, working in several languages, and he is
prepared to pose the big questions and make judgments....The story
of the war itself is well told and impressive in its scope, ranging
as it does from the domestic politics of small states such as
Yugoslavia and Finland to the global context. It reminds us, too,
of what Soviet 'liberation' actually meant for eastern
Europe....McMeekin is right that we have for too long cast the
second world war as the good one. His book will, as he must hope,
make us re-evaluate the war and its consequences."--Financial
Times
"Criticisms of the British for living in a Second World War past
are frequent. Sean McMeekin, professor of history at Bard College
and a talented scholar of the First World War, takes an alternative
view by arguing that we are generally living in the wrong war.
Drawing on an impressive array of international archives,
McMeekin...directs attention to Soviet activity....The book is
pertinent because of the extent to which modern cultural wars draw
on historicised identities and historical controversies."--The
Critic (UK)
"Sean McMeekin's new book fills a massive gap in the historiography
of World War II. Based on exhaustive research in Russian and other
archives, this examination of Stalin's foreign policy explores
fresh avenues and explodes many myths, perhaps the most significant
being that of unwittingly exaggerated emphasis on 'Hitler's war.'
McMeekin shows conclusively that the two tyrants were equally
responsible, both for the outbreak of war in 1939 and the appalling
slaughter which ensued."
--Nikolai Tolstoy
"Stalin's War is above all about strategy: the failure of Roosevelt
and Churchill to make shrewd choices as World War II played out.
McMeekin brilliantly argues that instead of weighting the European
and Pacific theaters to favor their own interests--and to weaken
the inevitably antagonistic Soviet Union--FDR and Churchill left
the most critical parts of Asia unguarded while they ground down
the German army, a decision that favored Stalin's interests far
more than their own. Roosevelt's 'Germany first' strategy and the
trillion dollars of Lend Lease aid he poured into Stalin's treasury
would underwrite Soviet control of China and East Central Europe
after 1945 and hatch a Cold War whose dire effects are with us
still."--Geoffrey Wawro, author of Sons of Freedom and director of
the University of North Texas Military History Center
"A sweeping reassessment of World War II seeking to 'illuminate
critical matters long obscured by the obsessively German-centric
literature' on the subject....Yet another winner for McMeekin, this
also serves as a worthy companion to Niall Ferguson's The Pity of
War, which argued that Britain should not have entered World War I.
Brilliantly contrarian history."--Kirkus
"Gripping, authoritative, accessible, and always bracingly
revisionist."--Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court
of the Red Tsar
"Historian McMeekin (The Russian Revolution) draws from recently
opened Soviet archives to shed light on Stalin's dark reasoning and
shady tactics....Packed with incisive character sketches and
illuminating analyses of military and diplomatic maneuvers, this is
a skillful and persuasive reframing of the causes, developments,
and repercussions of WWII."--Publishers Weekly
"Sean McMeekin's approach in Stalin's War is both original and
refreshing, written as it is with a wonderful clarity."--Antony
Beevor, author of Stalingrad
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