Red Famine
Stalin's War on Ukraine
by Anne Applebaum · first published 2017
70% recommend30% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Clear, well-researched account of Stalin's deliberate famine in Ukraine that places it within the wider Soviet famines across the USSR; recommended as a strong general primer for readers new to the topic.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
In 1929 Stalin launched his policy of agricultural collectivization—in effect a second Russian revolution—which forced millions of peasants off their land and onto collective farms. The result was a catastrophic famine, the most lethal in European history. At least five million people died between 1931 and 1933 in the USSR. But instead of sending relief the Soviet state made use of the catastrophe to rid itself of a political problem. In Red Famine, Anne Applebaum argues that more than three million of those dead were Ukrainians who perished not because they were accidental victims of a bad po
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Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think - by Hans Rosling. Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine, 1921-1933 - by Anne Applebaum. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Phillip Tetlock. The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance…
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?” ↗Red Famine by Anne Applebaum, although focused on the deliberate starvation of millions of Ukranians by Stalin in the Holodomor famine - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - is a fantastic general primer on…
on “Accounts to Support Ukrainian Army Directly via Bank of Ukraine” ↗Anne Applebaum's "Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine" is another one.
on “Holodomor” ↗…I has become fashionable to portray it as a Ukrainian tragedy, rather then a Eurasian tragedy. It effect people between Moldova, Omsk and Arkhangelsk and beyond. The most powerful version of that is Red Famine by Anne Applebaum. And that book as a pretty clear focus on Ukraine and a political message for the current situation for Western audiences. Ukrainian nationalism has been trying to use the Holodomor…
on “History's deadliest air raid happened in Tokyo during World War II (2020)” ↗Read some of Anne Applebaum's stuff: https://www.anneapplebaum.com/ In particular Red Famine: https://www.anneapplebaum.com/book/red-famine-stalins-war-on... Also read Mao's Great famine: https://www.amazon.com/Maos-Great-Famine-Devastating-Catastr... "Everytime" as the OP says is too strong.…
on “What’s North Korea like?” ↗Also Holodomor by Philip Wolny and Red Famine by Anne Applebaum.
on “Holodomor” ↗…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 Zone about the…
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on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023” ↗…kind of opposite and equal reaction to the first genocide, the crimes of Communism. https://jewishcurrents.org/the-double-genocide-theory You can also read Mark Tauger's discussion of Anne Applebaum's Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine (2017): >When even academics avoid confronting popular histories that mislead the public, they perpetuate a problem in the history field. The American historian Peter Charles…
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