for mass rapid industrialization in the Soviet Union; the Great Terror of 1937-38; and finally the relationship between the Stalinist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany which begins with the MolotovRibbentrop Pact, which ultimately sets the stage for the events in the final part of the volume, the lead up to the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Paradoxes, biography, and history In keeping with the viewpoint of the first volume, Waiting for Hitler is more than a biography of an individual, it is both a biography of an individual (primarily political, rather than personal) and the history of the time and place they impacted. "Kotkin does a fine job of placing Stalin’s actions in their geopolitical context, which encompassed the Spanish Civil War, Japanese aggression against China, the search for collective security in the 1930s, and much more. The dictator, he shows, was consumed by statecraft as well as by domestic politics. In this context, Kotkin argues persuasively that there was no contradiction between the Communist goal of world revolution and the dictator’s dedication to the revival of Russia’s great power status." In keeping with the theme of the previous volume, Stalin as a paradox of power, Kotkin continues to explore the paradoxes that seem to define his subject. Writing in the London Review of Books, noted Soviet scholar Sheila Fitzpatrick writes, "Stalin is all paradox. He is pockmarked and physically unimpressive, yet charismatic; a gambler, but cautious; undeterred by the prospect of mass bloodshed, but with no interest in personal participation. Cynical about everyone else’s motives, he himself ‘lived and breathed ideals’. Suspicious of ‘fancy-pants intellectuals’, he was an omnivorous reader whose success in getting the Russian creative intelligentsia into line was ‘uncanny’. Inclined to paranoia, he was still able to keep it under control. Intensely suspicious of almost everyone, he was not suspicious enough about Hitler." Collectivization and famines The author goes into significant detail about Stalin's ending the "concessions" Lenin made to the Soviet peasantry and his ensuing genocidal campaign of collectivization, the destruction of class enemies or kulaks and the famine inducing grain seizures. The complicity of Stalin's inner circle and their intimate involvement in forming this policy and carrying out its implementation are made clear, as is their knowledge of its consequences in the countryside. The author clearly demonstrates the grain seizures as the primary cause of the man-made famine in Ukraine, the Lower Volga