'Explains in a manner worthy of Arthur Koestler what totalitarianism really means. In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag. 'Exceptionally important, wise, perceptive, remarkably objective' Antony Beevor 27, 2012 A Pulitzer Prizewinning author returns with the story of those dark decades in Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union slammed the prison doors on people, cultures and countries. a masterpiece' Oliver Kamm, The Times, Books of the Year IRON CURTAIN THE CRUSHING OF EASTERN EUROPE, 1945-1956 by Anne Applebaum RELEASE DATE: Nov. She is the Director of Political Studies at the Legatum Institute in London, and she divides her time between Britain and Poland, where her husband, Radek Sikorski, serves as Foreign Minister. Anne Applebaum's landmark history of this brutal time shows how societies were ruthlessly eviscerated by Communist regimes, how opposition was destroyed and what life was like for ordinary people who had to choose whether to fight, to flee or to collaborate.Ī haunting reminder of how fragile freedom can be, Iron Curtain is an exceptional work of historical and moral reckoning.ĪNNE APPLEBAUM is a historian and journalist, a regular columnist for the Washington Post and Slate, and the author of several books, including Gulag: A History, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to a completely new political and moral system: Communism. Wilson, Financial TimesĪt the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union unexpectedly found itself in control of a huge swathe of territory in Eastern Europe. 21, 2012 Having brilliantly documented the horror of Stalin’s Soviet terror machine in her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, Anne Applebaum now offers a bulky sequel, Iron Curtain. 'The best work of modern history I have ever read' A. Thanks to Applebaum’s extensive interviews and archival research, Iron Curtain ensures that the everyday experiences of those in the Soviet Bloc will endure, even if they soon pass beyond living memory.Chosen 16 times as a 'Book of the Year' - the top non-fiction pick of 2012

A complement to such big-picture histories as Tony Judt’s Postwar, this book is concerned with the details of totalitarian rule: the diaspora of party enforcers from the USSR to the rest of the Soviet Bloc the sudden takeover of radio stations, universities, and youth groups by partisans the conflicted response of Catholic leaders to Stalin’s methods. Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain is a powerful attempt to show that totalitarianism was more than just its most public excesses. These trappings of postwar totalitarianism have stayed in our collective memory-brutal and terrifying, yes, but after more than 50 years, also so detached from their context that they’ve almost become political bogeymen.

Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2012: The gulags.

Iron Curtain by Anne Applebaum