This is CBS I in the World. I'm John Bachelor with Professor Jeffrey Roberts, who's very generous

to help me understand his new book, Stalin's library, a dictator in his books. The professor has witnessed these books. I have to

imagine them and Stalin writing in the margins, writing underlining, writing notes

to himself, doodling in some instance. Stalin was also a keen copy editor and an editor-in-chief

of documents in the course of his career. He was a very busy manager of information.

He was a knowledge worker.

He also was a great fan of history.

What kind of history is revelatory? Professor Rome, what a surprise.

Rome is important to Stalin,

especially as told by an historian who was not a socialist,

if I understand, not a a Bolshevik Robert Vipper who was Robert Vipper to Stalin

Vipa was a Russian historian, he's

pre-Robbolicry, you know, Russian,

he specialized in the history of early Christian history,

actually, but he also wrote about the ancient world in general and particularly about the

the rise and fall of the Russian Empire.

And Stalin was very interested in In Vieber's historical works and he and he marked them

extensively. Yeah, no history history was Stalin's favorite subject and Lippa I would say was his favorite

historian and Dinko wasn't you know a Marxist a Marxist historian.

Stalin had a rather disdainful attitude

to a lot of Marxist historians.

He thought they were just too abstract, yes?

...