Tito (a Biography)

Description

By (author) Swain, Geoffrey

Short /annotation:
In this, the first post-communist biography of Tito, the acclaimed historian Geoffrey Swain paints a new picture of this famous figure, focusing primarily on his Communist years. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in Communist and Eastern European history.

:
Josip Broz Tito was a remarkable figure in the history of Communism, the Second World War, the Balkans and post-war Eastern Europe. He was the only European besides Lenin to lead a successful Communist revolution and became one of the most renowned Communist leaders of all time. For a certain generation, he was remembered as someone who stood up to both Hitler and Stalin – and won. Tito was above all else a communist, and was devoted to the communist cause until the day he died. What made him different from other communist leaders was that his early experience of Soviet Russia had given him sufficient knowledge of the Soviet experiment to be wary of its spell. In this, the first post-communist biography of Tito, the acclaimed historian Geoffrey Swain paints a new picture of this famous figure, focusing primarily on his Communist years. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in Communist and Eastern European history.

Table of contents:
Introduction Chapter 1: The Making of a Yugoslav Revolutionary Chapter 2: Learning to Implement the People’s Liberation Struggle Chapter 3: Revolution through War Chapter 4: Revising Marxism Leninism Chapter 5: The Khrushchev Decade Chapter 6: Reforming Communism Chapter 7: Actually Existing Self-ManagementConclusionBibliography

Review quote:
”This is a fair account of Tito”s political life which works well as a history of Yugoslavia since its foundation from the Second World War to the death of Tito … the book has the great merit of being judicious and balanced.” – Donald Sassoon, Professor of Comparative European History at Queen Mary College, University of London

Biographical note:
Geoffrey Swain holds the Alec Nove Chair in Russian and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow. He has written extensively on the history of Russia and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century. His mostrecent publications include: ”Between Stalin and Hitler: Class War and Race War on the Dvina”; ”Trotsky”; and, with Nigel Swain, ”Eastern Europe since 1945”.

Promotional headline:
In this, the first post-communist biography of Tito, the acclaimed historian Geoffrey Swain paints a new picture of this famous figure, focusing primarily on his Communist years. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in Communist and Eastern European history.