Sarah Davies is a historian specializing in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

during the

Stalin era Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

. She is a professor of history at

Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament (UK), Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by r ...

Durham, England Durham ( , locally ) is a cathedral city and civil parish in the county of County Durham, Durham, England. It is the county town and contains the headquarters of Durham County Council, the unitary authority which governs the district of Count ...

, United Kingdom, and currently serves as chair of the History Department. Davies received the Alec Nove Prize for her first book, ''Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia,'' which was translated into Russian in 2011. Along with James Harris, she is the author of the 2015 ''Stalin's World: Dictating the Soviet Order.'' Funded by the

Arts and Humanities Research Council The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities. History The Arts a ...

, the book draws on Stalin's personal archives and previously unstudied diaries of people close to him to explain how he understood the world. The authors argue that Stalin was not a paranoid driven by irrational fears; instead, his beliefs were shaped by misperceptions stemming in part from flawed intelligence. Davies is currently working on a book on British and Soviet cultural diplomacy during the Cold War.

Bibliography

*''Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia. Terror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934–1941,'' Cambridge University Press, 1997 *editor, with James Harris, ''Stalin: A New History,'' Cambridge University Press, 2005 *''Stalin's World: Dictating the Soviet Order,'' jointly authored with James Harris, Yale University Press, 2015

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davies, Sarah Historians of communism Historians of Russia Living people Academics of Durham University Year of birth missing (living people)