Historian Norman Naimark receives 2020 Norris and Carol Hundley Award

Historian NORMAN NAIMARK, the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor in East European Studies, has been awarded a 2020 Norris and Carol Hundley Award from the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, for his book Stalin and the Fate of Europe.

The award is given annually for the most distinguished book on any historical subject submitted by a scholar who resides within the 22 Western states or four Canadian provinces from which the branch draws its membership.

In his book, Naimark argues that Josef Stalin did not want an Iron Curtain to descend. Instead, in the immediate years after World War II, he sought a more flexible, geostrategic approach to advancing Soviet interests abroad.

In a recent interview with Stanford News, Naimark said, “Certainly after the war, Stalin saw Europe with the eyes of an ultra-realist, meaning he saw opportunities he could exploit for expansion and influence. But he was also wary of getting the Soviet Union in any kind of clash with the Americans and British on the continent. Thus, he frequently discouraged the more radical aims of European communists.”

Read the interview about Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty.