Walter Laqueur

Walter Laqueur is Chairman of the International Research Council at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. His most recent publications are The Long Road to Freedom and Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations.

Schools of History

Walter Laqueur, 26 September 1991

‘About Hitler I can’t think of anything to say,’ thus Karl Kraus in a famous aside in 1935. But a great deal has been said about him ever since and no one has been better at saying it than Alan Bullock. His Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, published in 1952, is still the best biography, and one of the best books on the Nazi phenomenon in general. Only a very few other works come to mind which are in the same league: Konrad Heiden’s history of the Nazi Party and his Hitler biography – but they appeared in 1932 and 1936 respectively – and Joachim Fest’s fine work of 1972.’

Soviet Revisions

Oleg Gordievsky, 7 February 1991

Dmitri Volkogonov, General of the Soviet Army, head of the Institute of Military History and admirer of Gorbachev, has produced the most authoritative biography of Stalin we have read so far....

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Russians and the Russian Past

John Barber, 9 November 1989

Observers of Soviet politics in recent months might be forgiven for having a sense of déjà vu. The summer began with the first sessions of the Congress of People’s Deputies and...

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In the first few pages of Walter Laqueur’s The Age of Terrorism (largely a reworking and updating of his 1977 work, Terrorism), the author attempts to confront the old adage that ‘one...

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Mirror Images

Christopher Andrew, 3 April 1986

While writing World of Secrets, Walter Laqueur had discussions with the present and all surviving past directors of the Central Intelligence Agency save one, as well as with other senior...

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Point of Principle

Michael Irwin, 2 April 1981

The Country, which is concerned with old age, death and family bereavement, is adroitly restricted to an account of four visits. The first two, at intervals of a year, are paid by Daniel...

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Who knew?

Norman Stone, 20 November 1980

After the Second World War, an often-heard German excuse was that ‘we did not know.’ Even very senior Nazis, among them Goering and Speer, said that they had had no knowledge of...

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German Jew

Michael Irwin, 17 April 1980

The Missing Years attempts to show what it was like to be a Jew in Germany during the first 45 years of this century. Dr Richard Lasson, the narrator, traces his own career from front-line...

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