Briefly allies during World War II, Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin then tried to exterminate each other in sweeping campaigns unlike anything the modern world had ever seen. Millions of miles of Eastern Europe were ruined in their fight to the death, and millions of lives were sacrificed. Drawing on interviews with people who worked with these dictators, Laurence Rees has pieced together a compelling comparative portrait of regimes in which idealism is polluted by bloody pragmatism, and human suffering is used casually as a political tool. "Rees brilliantly combines powerful eye-witness testimony, vivid narrative and compelling analysis in this superb account."—Ian Kershaw