A book by history professor Anthony Snyder of Yale University

Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Killed More?
Who was worse, Hitler or Stalin?
Were these people victims of Stalin or of Hitler? Or both?

“Bloodlands makes clear that, if it hadn’t been for Hitler’s treachery in the spring of 1941, Stalin would have gladly remained a German ally. And it was not Germany alone that started the Second World War but Germany and the Soviets together, when they jointly invaded Poland, allowing the Nazis to finally catch up with a killing enterprise Stalin had already begun.”

- Charles Lewis, National Post, Canada

BLOODLANDS

Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Killed More?
Who was worse, Hitler or Stalin?
Were these people victims of Stalin or of Hitler? Or both?

A book by history professor, Anthony Snyder of Yale University has been brought to our attention and we think that the prospective this book gives on the enormous and tragic loss of life in Europe at the hands of Hitler and Stalin will be of interest to many of our readers.

Probably the best way to get you familiar with the book “BLOODLANDS” is to share with you some of the reviews.

To start with, here is a review by the author, Timothy Snyder, that appeared in THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/10/hitler-vs-stalin-who-killed-more/

He starts his review with the question - Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Killed More?
And ends his review with this question - Who was worse, Hitler or Stalin?
Were these people victims of Stalin or of Hitler? Or both?

Another review that appeared in THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS is by Anne Applebaum. The review is titled - The Worst of the Madness

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/worst-madness/?pagination=false

In her review she writes this comment:
“Snyder’s ambition is to persuade the West—and the rest of the world—to see the war in a broader perspective. He does so by disputing popular assumptions about victims, death tolls, and killing methods—of which more in a moment—but above all about dates and geography. The title of this book, Bloodlands, is not a metaphor. Snyder’s “bloodlands,” which others have called “borderlands,” run from Poznan in the West to Smolensk in the East, encompassing modern Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, Belarus, and the edge of western Russia. This is the region that experienced not one but two—and sometimes three—wartime occupations. This is also the region that suffered the most casualties and endured the worst physical destruction.”

From The New York Times Sunday Book Review is this review by Joshua Rubenstein who is the Northeast regional director of Amnesty International USA and a co-editor of “The Unknown Black Book: The Holocaust in the German-Occupied Soviet Territories.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/books/review/Rubenstein-t.html

His review which is titled “Europe Between Hitler and Stalin” begins with this statement:
“For most Americans, who remember World War II as beginning in 1941, it is necessary to recall that Europe had succumbed to an infatuation with violence long before the United States entered the conflict. Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale, compels us to look squarely at the full range of destruction committed first by Stalin’s regime and then by Hitler’s Reich. Each fashioned a terrifying orgy of deliberate mass killing.”

And another review from Canada’s National Post’s, THEAFTERWORD literary section by Charles Lewis

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/01/28/bloodlands/

In his review Mr. Lewis writes:
“Bloodlands makes clear that, if it hadn’t been for Hitler’s treachery in the spring of 1941, Stalin would have gladly remained a German ally. And it was not Germany alone that started the Second World War but Germany and the Soviets together, when they jointly invaded Poland, allowing the Nazis to finally catch up with a killing enterprise Stalin had already begun.”

From the reviews you can see that this book is worth investigating. Professor Snyder casts a new perspective on the events of this period in this part of Europe. Another prospective is that this may be the first time that the total of all the tragic deaths of this period have been put in one book.

Vin Karnila, Associate Editor