The Great Terror; A Reassessment

New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Presumed first paperback edition thus. First Paperback Printing [stated]. Trade paperback. Very good. viii, [2], 570, [4] pages. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Cover has minor wear and soiling. Name of previous owner in ink on half-title page. A update of Conquest's classic work on The Great Terror, which draws on official sources now available with the advent of glasnost. The definitive work on Stalin's purges. George Robert Acworth Conquest CMG OBE FBA FRSL (15 July 1917 - 3 August 2015) was a British-American historian and poet. Conquest was most notable for his influential works of non-fiction including The Great Terror: Stalin's Purges of the 1930s (1968). He was a longtime research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He wrote more than a dozen books on the Soviet Union. In 2000, Michael Ignatieff, whose family had emigrated from Russia as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution, wrote "One of the few unalloyed pleasures of old age is living long enough to see yourself vindicated. Robert Conquest is currently enjoying this pleasure." The definitive work on Stalin's purges, The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. In recent years, even the former Soviet Union has come to call it the definitive account of the period. While the original volume relied heavily on unofficial sources, later developments within the Soviet Union provided an avalanche of new material, which Conquest has mined, to write this revised and updated edition of his classic work. Under the light of fresh evidence, it is remarkable how many of Conquest's most disturbing conclusions have been verified. Many details have also been added, including hitherto secret information on the three great ''Moscow Trials,'' the purge of writers and other members of the intelligentsia, life in the labor camps, and many other key matters. Both a leading historian and a highly respected poet, Conquest blends profound research with evocative prose to create a compelling and eloquent chronicle of one of the twentieth century's most tragic events.