Norman M. Naimark, Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019. 361 pp. $29.95.
Editor's Introduction: Norman Naimark has published a great deal about the fate of Eastern Europe as it came under Soviet domination during the first few years after World War II. His latest book, Stalin and the Fate of Europe, is a reassessment of Joseph Stalin's policies toward seven European countries and is meant, in part, to consider whether the fate of Eastern Europe could have worked out much more favorably than it did. Both in the book and in his comments here, Naimark posits that a better outcome was indeed feasible, but he is also aware of the many factors that militated against such a result. Even scholars who disagree with specific aspects or the broad thrust of Naimark's argument can appreciate his effort to reexamine...