Gulag
A History of the Soviet Camps
by Anne Applebaum · first published 2003
70% recommend30% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Comprehensive, well-researched history of the Soviet camp system from its origins to its end, covering the prisoners' experiences and the surrounding society; recommended as an excellent introduction to the subject.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A fully documented history of the Soviet camp system, from its origins in the Russian Revolution to its collapse in the era of glasnost. Anne Applebaum first lays out the chronological history of the camps and the logic behind their creation, enlargement, and maintenance. Applebaum also examines how life was lived within this shadow country: how prisoners worked, how they ate, where they lived, how they died, how they survived. She examines their guards and their jailers, the horrors of transportation in empty cattle cars, the strange nature of Soviet arrests and trials, the impact of World Wa
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I can recommend Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum: http://www.amazon.com/Gulag-History-Anne-Applebaum/dp/076790... The Gulag was created as a terrible economic experiment - that having a large body of "free" slave labour…
on “The 2 Simple Reasons the Soviet Union Was Doomed to Fail” ↗I can recommend Anne Applebaum's history in addition, of course, to Solzhenitsyn's works: http://www.amazon.com/Gulag-A-History-Anne-Applebaum/dp/1400...
on “Soviet Moon Mystery Solved By NASA, 50 Years Later” ↗…makes me incredibly grateful to be living here and now, even if I'm having a bad week. Building up some empathy for my fellow man isn't a bad side effect either(!) I'm currently a third of the way into "Gulag: A History" by Anne Applebaum. Good book but very hard to bear. Millions, including innocent Soviet citizens, were tortured, massacred, or worked to death over a whole 30 years. It puts waking up with…
on “My Biggest Temptation” ↗If this sort of stuff intrigues you, as it does me, check out "Gulag" by Anne Applebaum. I listened to it in audiobook form (27 hours!) and it was both fascinating and devastating to hear how the Soviets imprisoned, tortured, and, frequently, killed millions in such encampments.
on “How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp” ↗I would also highly recommend "Gulag" by Anne Applebaum. She covers the entire history of the Gulag in great detail from the Revolution to the fall of the Soviet Empire.
on “Things I Learned in the Gulag” ↗Anne Applebaum's book Gulag describes similar psychology and social dynamics. It's an epic work of scholorship that examines the surrounding society as well as the camps and the prisoners. A wide range of inmate experience shows…
on “People can die from giving up the fight” ↗…fair to say that at that time concern for actual guilt or actual crimes wasn't a major factor in the Soviet 'justice' system. Edit: If you want some nightmare material I can recommend Anne Applebaum's "Gulag: A History": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag:_A_History Edit: I should correct myself there - of course, there were still those found guilty of 'normal' criminal offences and one of the recurring…
on “Beria and the Beautiful Game” ↗> Only if you ignore the gulag period. Which, of course, encompasses the majority of Soviet history. (Speaking of which, Anne Applebaum’s “Gulag: A History” is an excellent introduction to a camp system and culture whose scale and…
on “Color Photos of Stalin-Era Soviet Union Taken by a US Spy” ↗Gulag by Anna Applebaum is a good gulag history too.
on “How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp” ↗…and Stalin by Timothy Snyder was horrific reading and just gruesomely sad but also incredibly well researched and fascinating. I liked it so much I then when on an Ann Applebaum kick of Iron Curtain, Gulag and Red Famine, all of which were very good. If you were going to pick one of hers, I'd do Gulag. John Kraukauer's Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven are excellent, as is Crisis in the Red…
on “Where is the scrutiny over FDA’s role in the overdose epidemic?” ↗It's either from: http://www.simonsebagmontefiore.com/stalincourtredtsar.aspx or http://www.amazon.com/Gulag-History-Anne-Applebaum/dp/140003...
on “World War II was totally unrealistic” ↗…been sent there for a variety of reasons. And in some cases, convicts who had completed their sentences were technically freed, but not allowed to leave the camps anyway. Source: I'm currently reading "Gulag: A History" by Anne Applebaum. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/224379.Gulag
on “Haunting message penned from Soviet 'slaves' found buried in Urals theatre” ↗I'm currently reading Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History and the origins are the following: * Initially they had a huge amount of prisoners and shortage of workers in key regions. Naturally they had them work in remote areas. * The real motivation…
on “China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet” ↗As someone with only naive, cosmetic knowledge in this area, humor me.. but could a lot of it be down to inherited attitudes? Somehow I made it through Anne Applebaum's 28 hour audiobook of Gulag and something that struck me was how the Russian population became trained to keep their heads down and not stand out for fear of being incriminated by others or randomly selected to be thrown into a…
on “Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)” ↗…Central and Eastern Europe. She has worked at The Economist and The Spectator,[6] and was a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post (2002–2006).[7] Applebaum won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for Gulag: A History published the previous year.[8] She is a staff writer for The Atlantic[9] and a senior fellow at The Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.[10]"…
on “Eva Bartlett interview, exposing the truth in Ukraine (alternative view, video)” ↗