A review by abookishtype
Hammer & Tickle: A History of Communism Told Through Communist Jokes by Ben Lewis

3.0

I’ve always had a special place in whatever parts of my brain find things funny for communist jokes. (Well, I couldn’t say heart, could I?) About a month ago, I ran across a review of Ben Lewis’s Hammer & Tickle: The History of Communism Told Through Communist Jokes and had our Interlibrary Loan department find me a copy to read. In this book, Lewis attempts to argue that communist jokes had a role in the end of Communism. This book is not written like the typical non-fiction-work-with-a-point-to-make. Rather, it’s more like a memoir of Lewis’s attempts to find the origin of the jokes, how many people were arrested and punished for telling jokes, and, ultimately, if those jokes had anything to do with the events of 1988-1991...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.