Why read Stalin's Drive to the West, 1938-1945?

Book cover of Stalin's Drive to the West, 1938-1945: The Origins of the Cold War

Book description

Exploiting new findings from former East Bloc archives and from long-ignored Western sources, this book presents a wholly new picture of the coming of World War II, Allied wartime diplomacy, and the origins of the Cold War. The author reveals that the story - widely believed by historians and Western…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Stalin's Drive to the West, 1938-1945 as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Sean McMeekin

Author

Like Sebag Montefiore and Mawdsley, Raack was the first diplomatic historian to re-evaluate Stalin’s foreign policy in light of documents which became available after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. He exploded numerous myths about the supposed Soviet interest in “collective security” in the 1930s, showing that this was mere projection on the part of French and British and Czechoslovak statesmen who saw what they wanted to see in Stalin’s foreign policy, which was just as territorially “revisionist” as that of Italy, Germany, and Japan, just as expansionist – but better camouflaged.

From Sean's list on The best books on Stalin and the Second World War.