Kees Boterbloem has managed to bring together a formidable cast of first-rate scholars for this study of daily life in Stalinist Russia. The result is an extremely impressive book that offers cutting-edge research with a remarkably wide scope. Its focus lies at the intersection of everyday life and the horrors of Stalinism, to which Soviet citizens were subjected for decades. The book explores the impact of famine, terror and war on those who bore the brunt, and how they coped. It helps us to see what it was to live in Stalinist Russia if one was a man or a woman; a peasant or an urban resident; a consumer, a criminal or a Gulag inmate; a soldier or a disabled person; a student or a teacher; an ordinary citizen or an official; a believer or an atheist. I can think of no other book that does this as effectively.

Erik van Ree, Assistant Professor of Eastern European Studies, University of Amsterdam

With contributions from some of the most original and insightful historians of the Soviet Union, this volume demonstrates how the cataclysmic changes unleashed by Stalin impacted the daily lives of ordinary Soviet citizens. It is a story of brutal transformations and heroic resilience.

Jeffrey Veidlinger, Professor of History and Judaic Studies, University of Michigan, USA.

This innovative volume provides a 'new military history' account of the roles and experiences of ordinary people, military and civilian, on both sides of the Spanish Civil War and its immediate aftermath. It offers a striking new perspective.

Stanley G. Payne, Emeritus Professor of modern Spanish history, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA