Focusing on key themes in the period--from the rise of the General Secretary at the end of the 1920s to the world of "late Stalinism"--Chris Ward takes the reader to the center of the contemporary debate on Russia under Stalin and shows how historical enquiry has been conditioned not only by prevailing ideological fashions but also by the nature and quality of the sources available to researchers. Chris Ward, Lecturer in Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge. Focusing on key themes in the period--from the rise of the General Secretary at the end of the 1920s to the world of "late Stalinism"--Chris Ward takes the reader to the center of the contemporary debate on Russia under Stalin and shows how historical enquiry has been conditioned not only by prevailing ideological fashions but also by the nature and quality of the sources available to researchers. "Strongly recommended [students] will undoubtedly profit from reading Ward's views on this controversial subject and the purpose of academic history. Journal of European Studies ..a fresh and unhackneyed approach to a broadly familiar period."—Slavonica "Strongly recommended [students] will undoubtedly profit from reading Ward's views on this controversial subject and the purpose of academic history. Journal of European Studies ..a fresh and unhackneyed approach to a broadly familiar period."—Slavonica Read Less