Stalin's Terror of the 1930s has long been a popular subject for historians. However, while for decades, historians were locked in a narrow debate about the degree of central control over the terror process, recent archival research is underpinning new, innovative approaches and opening new perspectives. Historians have begun to explore the roots of the Terror in the heritage of war and mass repression in the late Imperial and early Soviet periods; in the regime's focus not just on former "oppositionists", wreckers and saboteurs, but also on crime and social disorder; and in the common European concern to identify and isolate "undesirable" elements. Recent studies have examined in much greater depth and detail the precipitants and triggers that turned a determination to protect the Revolution into a ferocious mass repression.

The Anatomy of Terror is an edited volume which brings together the work of the leading historians in the field, presenting not only the latest developments in the subject, but also the latest evolution of the debate. The sixteen chapters are divided into eight themes, with some themes reflecting the diversity of sources, methodologies and angles of approach, others showing stark differences of opinion. This opens up the field of study to further research, and this volume will proof indispensable for historians of political violence and of the era of Stalinist Terror.

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James Harris is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Leeds.