Gulag: A History - Hardcover

Applebaum, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0767900561 ISBN 13: 9780767900560

Publisher: Doubleday, 2003

Synopsis

A fully documented history of the system of Soviet concentration camps traces the evolution of the gulag from its origins during the Russian Revolution to its final collapse during the era of glasnost, describing their use as forced labor camps, how prisoners lived and died, their cultural and social significance, and more.

About this title

Review:

"An important book. . . . It is fervently to be hoped that people will read Anne Applebaum's excellent, tautly written, and very damning history." --"The New York Times Book Review ""The most authoritative--and comprehensive--account of this Soviet blight ever published by a Western writer." --"Newsweek ""A titanic achievement: learned and moving and profound. . . . No reader will easily forget Applebaum's vivid accounts of the horrible human suffering of the Gulag." --"National Review ""A tragic testimony to how evil ideologically inspired dictatorships can be." -"The New York Times ""Lucid, painstakingly detailed, never sensational, it should have a place on every educated reader's shelves." -"Los Angeles Times ""Magisterial. . . . Certain to remain the definitive account of its subject for years to come. . . . An immense achievement." --"The New Criterion ""An excellent account of the rise and fall of the Soviet labor camps between 1917 and 1986. . . . A splendid book." --"The New York Review of Books ""Should become the standard history of one of the greatest evils of the 20th century." --"The Economist" "Thorough, engrossing . . . A searing attack on the corruption and the viciousness that seemed to rule the system and a testimonial to the resilience of the Russian people. . . . Her research is impeccable." -"San Francisco Chronicle" "An affecting book that enables us at last to see the Gulag whole. . . . A valuable and necessary book." -"The Wall Street Journal" "Ambitious and well-documented . . . Invaluable . . . Applebaum methodically, and unflinchingly, provides a sense of what it was like to enter and inhabit the netherworld of theGulag." -"The New Yorker""[Applebaum's] writing is powerful and incisive, but it achieves this effect through simplicity and restraint rather than stylistic flourish. . . . [An] admirable and courageous book." -"The Washington Monthly" "Monumental . . . Applebaum uses her own formidable reporting skills to construct a gripping narrative." -"Newsday" "Valuable. There is nothing like it in Russian, or in any other language. It deserves to be widely read." -"Financial Times" "A book whose importance is impossible to exaggerate. . . . Magisterial . . . Applebaum's book, written with such quiet elegance and moral seriousness, is a major contribution to curing the amnesia that curiously seems to have affected broader public perceptions of one of the two or three major enormities of the twentieth century." -"Times Literary Supplement" "A truly impressive achievement . . . We should all be grateful to [Applebaum]." -"The Sunday Times" (London) "A chronicle of ghastly human suffering, a history of one of the greatest abuses of power in the story of our species, and a cautionary tale of towering moral significance . . . A magisterial work, written in an unflinching style that moves as much as it shocks, and that glistens with the teeming life and stinking putrefaction of doomed men and rotten ideals." -"The Daily Telegraph "(London) "No Western author until Anne Applebaum attempted to produce a history of the Gulag based on the combination of eyewitness accounts and archival records. The result is an impressively thorough and detailed study; no aspect of this topic escapes her attention. Well written, accessible...enlightening for both the general reader andspecialists." --"The New York Sun""For the raw human experience of the camps, read Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" or Irina Ratushinskaya's "Grey is the Color of Hope," For the scope, context, and the terrible extent of the criminality, read this history." --"Chicago Tribune"

About the Author:

ANNE APPLEBAUM was born in Washington, D.C., received a bachelor’s degree from Yale, and studied at Saint Antony’s College, Oxford, and the London School of Economics on a Marshall scholarship. In 1988, she moved to Poland to work for the Economist, and a few years later became foreign editor, then deputy editor, of the Spectator. Her work has also appeared in the New York Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, Slate and other British and American publications. She is the author of one previous book, Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe. After living for more than fifteen years in Europe, she joined the editorial board of the Washington Post in 2002 and now lives in Washington, D.C.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0767900561
• ISBN 13: 9780767900560
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 677