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coffee_cake's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
3.75
I would have rated this higher if I read the physical book, and I want to reread it in that format, but I got this audiobook on sale. It is a very well written and in-depth researched book.
dearblobfish's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75
cherbear's review
4.0
Anne Applebaum's thorough history of the Soviet Gulag system is a must read for anyone who is interested in Russian history. She poses a very interesting question at the start of the book. Why has Stalin and the murderous history he left behind not condemned with equal fervor as other undisputed genocidal leaders, such as Hitler? While the book cannot answer that question, the thorough details and explanations of the Gulag system leaves no question in my mind what the answer to be.
tittypete's review against another edition
4.0
I’m a glutton for punishment and/or clarity. See, I recently wrapped up reading all three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago. So I got whole gob of Gulag. But maybe because it was so long and not super straightforward that I felt like I didn’t really get a clear picture.
So this book, written by a woman academic that didn’t get put in a prison camp served as a tight little 700 page summary of the aforementioned 1800+ page ‘experiment in literary investigation. Written with considerably less Slavic pizzazz, this Gulag book gave me a lengthy look at the clear picture I was craving.
Folks, this book has it all when it comes to Russian forced labor prison sadness. You’ve got your humble beginnings during Tsarist times when the Bolsheviks were victims. You’ve got your senseless canal-building, great terror, mass arrests, your show trials and your frozen human waste coated cattle car transport. Want death? There’s so much death. Execution death, escape death, starving death, starving and going crazy death, inmate fight death and self-self-inflicted death. And there’s work too! Logging, digging, uranium mining, untrained doctoring, and burying. It’s cold. There’s improper clothing. Ordinary criminals are always trying to buttsex the softy political prisoners. Tattoos of vaginas on faces and tattoos of pro and anti-socialist slogans on faces. Everybody is miserable and there’s so many of them.
There were dudes and kids and women and it sucked really badly for them all. People eat glass, swallow spoons and nail their ball-bags to boards because those things were less worse than going to work.
In the end it didn’t turn out to be the economic boon it was meant to and seemed to have genuinely fucked up the Russian psyche even more. These are some cold blooded lizard people now and the authors kinda implies that they’re sort of indifferent about the whole thing. But now they’re winning, so why should they live in the past, amirite?
So this book, written by a woman academic that didn’t get put in a prison camp served as a tight little 700 page summary of the aforementioned 1800+ page ‘experiment in literary investigation. Written with considerably less Slavic pizzazz, this Gulag book gave me a lengthy look at the clear picture I was craving.
Folks, this book has it all when it comes to Russian forced labor prison sadness. You’ve got your humble beginnings during Tsarist times when the Bolsheviks were victims. You’ve got your senseless canal-building, great terror, mass arrests, your show trials and your frozen human waste coated cattle car transport. Want death? There’s so much death. Execution death, escape death, starving death, starving and going crazy death, inmate fight death and self-self-inflicted death. And there’s work too! Logging, digging, uranium mining, untrained doctoring, and burying. It’s cold. There’s improper clothing. Ordinary criminals are always trying to buttsex the softy political prisoners. Tattoos of vaginas on faces and tattoos of pro and anti-socialist slogans on faces. Everybody is miserable and there’s so many of them.
There were dudes and kids and women and it sucked really badly for them all. People eat glass, swallow spoons and nail their ball-bags to boards because those things were less worse than going to work.
In the end it didn’t turn out to be the economic boon it was meant to and seemed to have genuinely fucked up the Russian psyche even more. These are some cold blooded lizard people now and the authors kinda implies that they’re sort of indifferent about the whole thing. But now they’re winning, so why should they live in the past, amirite?
radbear76's review
4.0
An eye opening book that provides another example of man's inhumanity to man and a reminder of why the West fought the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
generalheff's review
5.0
Perfect balance of detailed historical overview, with description of the human impact of the camps; a superb read.
haazex's review
5.0
This is an outstanding immersion in a terrible time! At times this book was a bit overwhelming. Applebaum brings forward an avalanche of names, places and numbers, suspended in a fog of despair and tyranny. Yet she also brings forward lots of voices from memoirs speaking like ghosts from the past of these times. We cannot forget these travesties of tyranny - of people kept captive by fear and oppression. It is sobering to experience the 20th century's Soviet Union through Applebaum's perceptive lens. I will never forget these events and voices. It is difficult to traverse this realm of suffering, but it is worthwhile as well as unforgettable. An excellent work of history! I wonder about the fate of humanity ...
beckykeister's review
5.0
Not really light reading; you often find yourself asking the "what would I have done" questions as Applebaum describes life in the Soviet prison camps. She does an excellent job of showing the variety of experiences that people had, some horrific, some not and she draws from SO many different accounts. Even though she has clearly expressed opinions on the brutality of the Soviet systems, her portrayal of the camps feels fair and she openly acknowledges where the data is lacking or perspectives are missing.