The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century

Vladimir Tismaneanu combines enormous erudition, sharp insight, and unique personal experience in this wide-ranging essay on the problems of totalitarianism in the twentieth century. The Devil in History is mandatory reading for those interested in the crucial questions of morality and politics posed by the comparison of Nazism and Stalinism. -Norman M. Naimark, Robert and Florence McDonnel Professor of Eastern European Studies, Stanford UniversityThe Devil in History is a lengthy essay on the intellectual origins, crimes, and failures of the twentieth century's worst totalitarian types of regimes, fascism and communism. There are few scholars as conversant with this material, or as able to explain it as well, as Vladimir Tismaneanu, who gives a good sense of why utopian ideals meant to overcome the ills of capitalist, bourgeois democracy went so sensationally wrong and produced such massive evil. -Daniel Chirot, co-author of Why Not Kill Them All? The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political MurderThe Devil in History is a very important work of intellectual history that considers a basic question of the twentieth century and represents vast and ecumenical learning and well-considered personal experience. It has moments of indubitable brilliance. -Timothy Snyder, author of The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 In his revealing new study, Vladimir Tismaneanu traces the intellectual origins of the murderous twentieth century. The focus is on the ideologies of Europe's totalitarian regimes identified most prominently with the names Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. Although these characters were amoral and perhaps even psychopathic killers, the author rightly insists that such labels do not explain the popular appeal of the dictators, who were worshipped as if they were gods by crowds of true believers. Even after 1945, new Communist leaders pursued quests for utopia and mounted crusades of their own, all of them doomed to fail. Tismaneanu provides a compelling and convincing account of how this monumental tragedy came to pass. -Robert Gellately, author of Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe