"The canon of good history books about Albania in English is small, but this is a mighty addition to it. Austin and Hoxha have done a wonderful job in telling the Albanian dictator's story and setting it in the context of his times. It is full of insights and thankfully devoid of all the usual clickbait cliches--bunkers, little-known country, the North Korea of Europe, blah, blah, blah. This is a solid piece of scholarship. It examines Hoxha's story and explores the essential who, how, why, what, and where. It is not a book in which everything and everyone is either described as black or white or good and bad which is the normal approach to writing about Hoxha and his life and times. Maybe it is the passage of time which has cooled the emotion that used to color books about this period, but that means the authors have succeeded in exploring the nuances of Hoxha's rule and they are not afraid to voice what some will find uncomfortable opinions. They masterfully explain how to understand Hoxha we need to see the continuity rather than the breaks between Zog and fascism and finally his rule.

The interplay of Hoxha's Marxist-Leninist worldview and Albanian nationalism is fascinating, as is the way the dictator sought immortality though his legacy. Finally, the authors explain how it is crucial to understand this very legacy in order to understand the often tragic course of Albanian history in the wake of communism.".