Stalin — The Court of the Red Tsar

Why it’s on the list: Not a biography of Stalin so much as of his circle — the dachas, the drinking, the signed death lists — from archives and the families of the men around him.

Where I heard about it

• Replies to @typesfast — named in the answers to his question “What’s the best history book you’ve read?” (the thread, June 2025).

Connections

• What’s the best history book… (tweet) — the saved thread this recommendation came from.
• Joseph Stalin · Simon Sebag Montefiore · Russia · Power — where this sits in the corpus.