Stalin, like Hitler, remains the very personification of evil but also one of the creators of today’s world. Now in an enthralling biography that reads like a thriller, Simon Sebag Montefiore unveils the shadowy, adventurous journey of the Georgian cobbler’s son who became the Red Tsar. What makes a Stalin? Was he illegitimate? Was his mother whore or saint? Was Stalin a Tsarist agent or Lenin’...