Review of Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 and Stalin: Waiting for Hitler: 1929-1941, by Stephen Kotkin Over a lifetime, one can only achieve a very selective understanding of history. No matter how smart and well-read you are, even if you devote your life to the field, there will always remain huge gaps in your knowledge. There will be entire regions of the world, civilizations, and historical eras that you know close to nothing about. Given that one must be selective,