ISBN Iron Curtain : The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56

From Anne Applebaum, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'Gulag', comes a major new work of historical and moral reckoning: the story of life behind the 'Iron Curtain'. Once the Nazis were defeated in 1945, the people of Central and Eastern Europe expected to recover the lives they had led before 1939. Instead, they found themselves subjected to a tyranny that was in many ways as inhuman as the one which they had just escaped. This book explains how Communism was imposed on these previously free societies in the decade after the end of the Second World War. Applebaum describes, in calm but devastating detail, how political parties, the church, the media, young people's organisations - the institutions of civil society on every level - were all quickly eviscerated. Ranging widely across new archival material and many sources unknown in English, she follows the communists' tactics as they bullied, threatened and murdered their way to power. She also chronicles individual lives to show the rapid choices people had to make - to fight, to flee, or to collaborate. Within a remarkably short period after the end of the war, Eastern Europe had been ruthlessly Stalinised. 'Iron Curtain' is a brilliant history of a brutal period in European history, but also a reminder of how fragile free societies are, and how vulnerable they can be to the predations of determined and unscrupulous enemies.
ISBN
0713998687
Pages
656
ISBN13
9780713998689(What's this?)
Weight (grammes)
1162
Publisher
Penguin Books Ltd
Published in
London
Imprint
Allen Lane
Height (mm)
240
Format
Hardback
Width (mm)
162
Publication date
04 Oct 2012
Spine width (mm)
44
DEWEY
947.0009044
Academic level
General
DEWEY edition
DC23
Iron Curtain is an exceptionally important book which effectively challenges many of the myths of the origins of the Cold War. It is wise, perceptive, remarkably objective and brilliantly researched. -- Antony Beevor Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain [is] certainly the best work of modern history I have ever read. -- A.N. Wilson Financial Times Applebaum's description of this remarkable time is everything a good history book should be: brilliantly and comprehensively researched, beautifully and shockingly told, encyclopedic in scope, meticulous in detail... it is a true masterpiece. -- Keith Lowe Sunday Telegraph In her relentless quest for understanding, Applebaum shines light into forgotten worlds of human hope, suffering and dignity... Others have told us of the politics of this time. Applebaum does that but also shows what politics meant to people's lives, in an era when the state did more to shape individual destinies than at any time in history. -- John Connelly Washington Post Iron Curtain is modern history writing at its very best; assiduously researched, it wears its author's considerable erudition lightly. It sets a new benchmark for the study of this vitally important subject. -- Roger Moorhouse Independent on Sunday Anne Applebaum's masterly book gives for the first time, a systematic explanation of the other, largely untold, side of the story... it is a window into a world of lies and evil that we can hardly imagine. -- Edward Lucas Standpoint