British-born historian Robert Conquest, whose influential works on Soviet history shed light on the terror during the Stalin era, has died. He was 98.
Conquest's wife, Elizabeth Neece, said he died Monday of pneumonia in Palo Alto.
Conquest was the author of 21 books on Soviet history, politics and international affairs. His "The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties," which documented the purges of dictator Josef Stalin in the 1930s, remains one of the most influential studies of Soviet history.
Published in 1968, the book estimated that under Stalin, 20 million people died in labor camps, from executions and in famines.