Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia
“In a strongly-written, fascinating, and original book, Jonathan Brent interweaves portraits of Russians in their daily lives with an astute analysis of Joseph Stalin's legacy.” (Philip Roth)“Inside the Stalin Archivesis a necessary report from the Soviet netherworld of totalizing injustice that ought to have been universally known throughout the greater part of the twentieth century—when it could not have existed. Jonathan Brent’s discoveries will shake and shock and indispensably enlighten.” (Cynthia Ozick)“The author is careful to make neither heroes nor villains of the ghosts he summons from the archives, incorporating flawed personalities into stories of unthinkable justice.” (Katya Tylevich -readrussia.com)“Brent seized a unique opportunity that, if not for him, would doubtless have been missed….[H]is book shows us the conditions—moral, personal, and material—that Russians take for granted but which are utterly unlike anything Americans have ever experienced.” (Gary Saul Morson -The New Criterion)“In the first part of his engaging and well-written memoir,Inside the Stalin Archives, Brent tells the story of the [Annals of Communism's] genesis.  He conjures up the Moscow of the early 1990s, a time when the Russians were struggling to recover from the loss of the old certainties following the collapse of the Soviet system and adapt to a market-based economy.” (Orlando Figes -The New York Review)“A fascinating, subtle, and finely written quest into the Russia of today through the dark labyrinth of history. Brent unveils not only the secrets of his journeys into Soviet Archives, but also a unique yet personal portrait of an enigmatic country and a blood-soaked century.” (Simon Sebag Montefiore)“Brent's engaging memoir . . . reveals as much about the grim realities of post-Soviet life and bureaucracy as it does about the archives themselves. Equipped with little Russian and few contacts, but with an almost palpable sense of decency and honest intentions that illuminate his book, Brent explains for the general reader as well as for specialists how he went about his work in the new Russia.” (Martin Walker -New York Times Review of Books)