A review by wargortarg
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder

4.0

Excellent reading material for everyone in current times. The political climate in most countries today, consistently amplified by voices on social or mainstream media in the name of freedom of speech, has the capacity to be polarized and turn violent in the same way it did in the "bloodlands" between Stalin and Hitler. Does it have lessons for the victimhood and innocence perpetrated by aggressors in USA or India in the name of justifying violence towards specific communities? It does. Does it give context to how policies and laws shaped today based on an exaggerated / inaccurate history ultimately end up creating a similar status quo ripe for re-creating the history (albeit with different victims)? Yes it does. The author patiently prods through the circumstances around both the world wars identifying the complex relationship between the two dictators and the states they aimed to create. The descriptions of deaths are too graphic, but have to be read and understood. There are rarely any stories of heroism or any in-depth analysis of the root of anti-semitism, which I felt the readers could have benefitted from.