These essays rethink the nature of Stalinism and Nazism and establish a new methodology for viewing their histories.

1. Introduction: beyond totalitarianism - Stalinism and Nazism compared Michael Geyer with Sheila Fitzpatrick; 2. The political (dis)orders of Stalinism and national socialism Yoram Gorlizki and Hans Mommsen; 3. Utopian biopolitics: reproductive policies, gender roles, and sexuality in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union David L. Hoffman and Annette F. Timm; 4. State violence - violent societies Christian Gerlach and Nicolas Werth; 5. The quest for order and the pursuit of terror: National Socialist Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union as multi-ethnic empires Jorg Baberowski and Anselm Doering-Manteuffel; 6. Frameworks for social engineering: Stalinist schema of identification and the Nazi volksgemeinschaft Christopher Browning and Lewis Siegelbaum; 7. Energizing the everyday: on the breaking and making of social bonds in Nazism and Stalinism Shelia Fitzpatrick and Alf Ludtke; 8. The new man in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany Peter Fritzsche and Jochen Hellbeck; 9. States of exception: the Nazi-Soviet War as a system of violence, 1939-45 Mark Edele and Michale Geyer; 10. Mutual perceptions and projections: Stalin's Russia in Nazi Germany: Nazi Germany in Stalin's Russia - Nazi Germany in the Soviet Union Katerina Clark and Karl Schloegel.