A mesmerising chilling close-up portrayal of Stalin from Milovan Djilas a Communist insider - with an introduction from Anne Applebaum author of Gulag and Iron CurtainThis extraordinarily vivid and unnerving book three meetings held with Stalin during and after the Second World War. Djilas brilliantly describes the dictator in his lair - cunning cruel enormously talented. Few books give as clear a sense of what made Stalin such a compelling figure and how he was able to hypnotise and terrify those around him. Djilas also describes the key members of Stalins court: Beria Malenkov Zhukov Molotov and Khruschchev. The result is a gripping account of the ruler at the height of his fame and power. About the Author Anne Applebaum is the author ofGulag: A History which won the Pulitzer Prize ofIron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 which won the Cundill Prize andRed Famine: Stalins War on Ukraine which won the Lionel Gelber and Duff Cooper prizes. She is a columnist forThe Atlantic and a senior fellow of the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. She divides her time between Britain Poland and the USA.