William Taubman.
WILLIAM TAUBMAN
KHRUSHCHEV: THE MAN AND HIS ERA (2003)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography 2004.
Nikita Khrushchev (born 1894) was First Secretary of the Soviet Union’s Communist party from 1953 to 1964. He astonished the communist world with his denunciation of his predecessor Joseph Stalin. He embarked on some moderate domestic reforms and conducted negotiations with the USA to reduce Cold War tensions. Born in a village in western Russia, he was as a young man a metal worker. He became a political commissar, and worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. In 1938 he was sent by Stalin to Ukraine as governor. He emerged victorious from the power struggle which followed Stalin’s death in 1953.
The New York Times wrote of Taubman’s biography of Khruschev: ‘This volume, with its brisk, enjoyable narrative, succeeds in every sense: sweep, depth, liveliness, color, tempo. Each chapter shines with mastery and authority. A conscientious biography of a worthy subject cannot help being a portrait of the times, and Taubman's book fully lives up to the ''and his era'' of the subtitle.’
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William Taubman (born 1941) is Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. He obtained his BA from Harvard University, and his MA and PhD from Columbia University, His biography of Nikita Kruschev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004. He is the son of Nora Stern, a teacher, and Howard Taubman, who was a critic for both music and theatre at the New York Times.
