Mark Edele is a historian of the Soviet Union and its successor states, in particular Russia. He is the inaugural Hansen Professor in History at The University of Melbourne, as well as a former Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2015-19). He grew up in southern Bavaria and was trained as a historian at the Universities of Erlangen, Tubingen, Moscow, and Chicago. He is the author of Soviet Veterans of the Second World War (2008), Stalinist Society (2011) The Soviet Union: A short History (2019) as well as many essays on various aspects of Soviet history and historiography published in academic journals based in Germany, the United States, Korea, Japan, Russia, and Australia. He is one of the editors of Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union (2017).
An extensive historiographical discussion * Kenneth Slepyan, Journal of Modern History * Stalin's Defectors is a great introduction to the complex issues of defection and collaboration, and a successful synthesis of different subfields and specializations in history. * Helmut Langerbein, Holocaust and Genocide Studies * Edele uses all the right sources, poses smart questions about a difficult and understudied topic, and clearly presents answers that significantly advance our understanding. For all these reasons, this excellent book must be highly recommended. * Karel C. Berkhoff, Slavic Review * Edele's study will contribute to safeguarding the historical analysis of this topic against one-sided political-historical instrumentalisation. * Andreas Hilger, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas * sophisticated quantitative and qualitative analysis . . . highly readable, thought-provoking book that addresses key issues of both wartime defection and loyalty to the Stalinist regime. * Jonathan House, Russian Review * Stalin's Defectors is a remarkable book . . . Edele writes fluently and precisely, and is careful to not stretch his evidence too far. The book makes an important contribution to ongoing debates about the war on the Eastern Front between 1941 and 1945, and deserves to read widely, by anybody interested in either side of this conflict. * R. Dale, Slavonic and East European Review a * Probing a subject that for decades enraged politicians in Moscow and Berlin and fascinated historians from Britain to Australia, Mark Edele's Stalin's Defectors is a model of objectivity ... basing his meticulous investigation on vast Russian and German documentation and Western scholarship * Jonathan Mirsky, Times Higher Education * fascinating * Jonathan Steele, The Guardian * Edele's study will contribute to safeguarding the historical analysis of this topic against one-sided political-historical instrumentalisation. * Andreas Hilger, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas * This book is essential reading for those interested in the motivation and morale of the Soviet soldier during the Second World War and for those in the profession who want to keep abreast of the current state of the debate on popular support for and opposition to Stalinism. * Roger Reese, American Historical Review *