Anne Applebaum's History of the Gulag

Diann Block: Arrived in a timely manner, condition as described

Canada on Sep 10, 2023

Muhammad Nizam Bin Mohtar: A well written book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Singapore on Aug 07, 2023

Bhaskar Ray: It’s an eye opener. Very in-depth , well researched writing

India on Jul 16, 2023

H-T: 10-Star worth masterpiece! The book has details of GULAG in history from how it started and ended. Each chapter flows smoothly and easy to follow the history. The Russian words are hard to pronounce, but I enjoyed the actual data, facts, and witness accounts (thrilling and exciting), which are pepped everywhere in each chapter, and in the way the author arranged those chapters is smooth, well organized and easy to follow. The interesting is that the author analytically compared GULAG to Holocaust, which helped me understand more about GULAG. I like the way the author wrote, organized, and shared her thoughts, and I purchased Red Famine (by the same author).

United States on May 17, 2023

María: Muy bueno, no decepciona nada de nada, si quieres documentarte sobre las promesas y felicidad que vende el comunismo pero la dura realidad que esconde. Debería leerlo todos los pelagatos de letras de la UCM que se dejan embaucar por una "ideología" política responsable de tantos millones de muertos y aniquilación como Hitler. Pero es que los nazis perdieron la guerra y los comunistas no, y se han preocupado de que nadie cuente las verdades de sus atrocidades y millones de muertos fruto del amor a su pueblo de Lenin o Stalin. Esa idología igual que una secta que promete el paraíso y te trae la degradación y aniquilación. Debería ser lectura obligatoria de preuniversidad. ¿Para cuándo un Erasmus en Venezuela o Cuba que espabile a los borregos que capta el comunismo en España? Vamos al WC con tanto ignorante suelto.

Spain on Jan 26, 2023

Ron L: This is not an easy book to read, and I’m sure it was much harder to write in such a way that the reader would read it. It is also not a mere listing of the number who died or concise descriptions of the tortures employed for whatever purpose, although those matters are discussed if you are so interested.
It is an overview of the ‘staat in staat’ of the Gulag; once you ‘entered’ the organization, Soviet public law (such as it was) became irrelevant. You were no longer a Soviet citizen; you were a denizen of the Gulag. And under Stalin, your arrest was a purely arbitrary matter; you might have as easily been hit by lightning, and for the same ‘reason’.
But before a reader gets to the exploration of the subject, the author makes the introduction interesting on its own; Ms. Applebaum examines the asymmetry of Western response to Hitler, a universally despised mass murderer, compared to Stalin, who, by direct order, starved more Ukrainians to death than the number of Jews Hitler managed to kill in his ‘industrialized’ murder machines. Even now, people in the EU and the US who would never hint of a defense of Hitler will dismiss Stalin’s crimes as trivial, and...

United States on Aug 12, 2018

Darth Maciek: This is a major non-fiction book, one of those which I believe everybody SHOULD read once in their life. The reasons why I believe it to be so good and important are the following:

1. It is extremely well researched. From the first to the last page you can immediately see that Anne Applebaum worked extremely hard to gather the information she delivers by searching old Soviet archives but also all kind of published memories of Gulag survivors. Anne Applebaum is not a very prolific author as she published until now only three books (one in 1996, one in 2003 and one in 2012), because she clearly gives herself time to work her documentation and the subject extensively and comprehensively. And it shows!

2. It is full of concrete information, data and real stories. Author gathered a lot during her research - and then she gave it back to her readers. At 624 densely printed pages in hardcover edition this is a huge book - but there is no filler here. This book gives to the reader comprehensive information, real data and hard evidence, not some weak@ss rhetorics and soul searching.

3. It is well organized and well written. "Gulag" is a history and therefore it follows...

United Kingdom on Aug 05, 2013

L. Glaesemann: Equality. Brotherhood. Soviet slave labor. For profit? Downfall. These are the words that describe the progression from liberal idealism to the imprisonment and deportation of over 28 million Soviet citizens and foreigners to what were called the Gulags, labor camps spread out across much of the now defunct Soviet Union that held those deemed "criminals" and "politicals." Not until 1962 when Aleksandr's Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published did the rest of the world recognize that the Soviet vision of a worker's paradise was nothing more than barbed wire and bondage.

Such overwhelming numbers should make anyone pause for a moment and question why people were willing to tolerate such abuse. While there may not be an easy answer to this question, author Anne Applebaum poses an even more daring question: Why has the world paid so little attention to a system of oppression that destroyed the lives of millions of people? In her introduction, for example, Applebaum makes a compelling argument when she describes American and West European tourists purchasing t-shirts and memorabilia from the Stalinist Soviet era. Would those same tourists in their...

United States on May 17, 2012