Get a free audiobook
-
Iron Curtain
- The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 26 hrs and 39 mins
- Categories: Politics & Social Sciences, Politics & Government
People who bought this also bought...
-
Gulag
- A History
- Written by: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 27 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gulag - a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners - was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost.
-
-
great book
- By Kevin on 2020-09-02
-
Red Famine
- Stalin's War on Ukraine
- Written by: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Excellent but dark and disturbing
- By caleb williamson on 2020-07-03
-
Twilight of Democracy
- The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
- Written by: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else.
-
-
an insightful book
- By karl roth on 2021-03-10
-
Stalin
- The Court of the Red Tsar
- Written by: Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
- Length: 27 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This thrilling biography of Stalin and his entourage during the terrifying decades of his supreme power transforms our understanding of Stalin as Soviet dictator, Marxist leader and Russian tsar. Based on groundbreaking research, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals in captivating detail the fear and betrayal, privilege and debauchery, family life and murderous cruelty of this secret world. Written with extraordinary narrative verve, this magnificent feat of scholarly research has become a classic of modern history writing.
-
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
- Written by: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 43 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world’s most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through 34 nations and 60 years of political and cultural change—all in one integrated, enthralling narrative.
-
-
Good content; terrible narrator
- By Daly Close on 2020-01-30
-
Stalin, Volume I
- Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
- Written by: Stephen Kotkin
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 38 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume One of Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Vladimir Zhivov on 2020-09-01
-
Gulag
- A History
- Written by: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 27 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gulag - a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners - was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost.
-
-
great book
- By Kevin on 2020-09-02
-
Red Famine
- Stalin's War on Ukraine
- Written by: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Excellent but dark and disturbing
- By caleb williamson on 2020-07-03
-
Twilight of Democracy
- The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
- Written by: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else.
-
-
an insightful book
- By karl roth on 2021-03-10
-
Stalin
- The Court of the Red Tsar
- Written by: Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
- Length: 27 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This thrilling biography of Stalin and his entourage during the terrifying decades of his supreme power transforms our understanding of Stalin as Soviet dictator, Marxist leader and Russian tsar. Based on groundbreaking research, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals in captivating detail the fear and betrayal, privilege and debauchery, family life and murderous cruelty of this secret world. Written with extraordinary narrative verve, this magnificent feat of scholarly research has become a classic of modern history writing.
-
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
- Written by: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 43 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world’s most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through 34 nations and 60 years of political and cultural change—all in one integrated, enthralling narrative.
-
-
Good content; terrible narrator
- By Daly Close on 2020-01-30
-
Stalin, Volume I
- Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
- Written by: Stephen Kotkin
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 38 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume One of Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Vladimir Zhivov on 2020-09-01
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- Written by: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Important context, narrator lacks flow
- By Amazon Customer on 2020-11-13
-
A New World Begins
- The History of the French Revolution
- Written by: Jeremy D. Popkin
- Narrated by: Pete Cross, Jeremy D. Popkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society - even if, after more than 200 years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the listener in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Alexandre Lariviere on 2021-04-14
-
Grant
- Written by: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 48 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow reveals in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
-
-
A thoroughly moving story
- By Anonymous User on 2019-11-23
-
King Leopold's Ghost
- A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
- Written by: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the late 1890s, Edmund Dene Morel, a young British shipping company agent, noticed something strange about the cargoes of his company's ships as they arrived from and departed for the Congo. Incoming ships were crammed with valuable ivory and rubber. Outbound ships carried little more than soldiers and firearms. Correctly concluding that only slave labor could account for these cargoes, Morel almost singlehandedly made this slave-labor regime the premier human rights story in the world.
-
-
I'm only critiquing the audio and not the story
- By Natalie on 2021-03-28
-
The Road to Unfreedom
- Russia, Europe, America
- Written by: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Timothy Snyder
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the end of the Cold War, the victory of liberal democracy was thought to be absolute. Observers declared the end of history, confident in a peaceful, globalized future. But we now know this to be premature. Authoritarianism first returned in Russia, as Putin developed a political system dedicated solely to the consolidation and exercise of power. In the last six years, it has creeped from east to west as nationalism inflames Europe, abetted by Russian propaganda and cyberwarfare.
-
-
Interesting.
- By Jake L.S. on 2020-09-04
-
The Warmth of Other Suns
- The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
- Written by: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
-
-
Meant for reading not listening
- By Christine Tan on 2019-01-26
-
Imperial Twilight
- The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age
- Written by: Stephen R. Platt
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As one of the most potent turning points in the country's modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today's China seeks to put behind it. In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to "open" China even as China's imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country's decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China's advantage.
-
-
Excellently engaging and fascinating
- By Amazon Customer on 2020-07-24
-
Enemy at the Gates
- The Battle for Stalingrad
- Written by: William Craig
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On August 5, 1942, giant pillars of dust rose over the Russian steppe, marking the advance of the 6th Army, an elite German combat unit dispatched by Hitler to capture the industrial city of Stalingrad and press on to the oil fields of Azerbaijan. The Germans were supremely confident; in three years, they had not suffered a single defeat. The Luftwaffe had already bombed the city into ruins. German soldiers hoped to complete their mission and be home in time for Christmas.
-
-
Entertaining. Historically accurate
- By Langer on 2020-09-05
-
Flights
- Written by: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time.
-
-
Fabulous story
- By Roger Perrault on 2019-02-13
-
The Anarchy
- The Relentless Rise of the East India Company
- Written by: William Dalrymple
- Narrated by: Sid Sagar
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide, and answerable only to its distant shareholders. In his most ambitious and riveting audiobook to date, William Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.
-
-
Very Good. Not for Me
- By Langer on 2020-06-27
-
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
- A History of Nazi Germany
- Written by: William L. Shirer
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 57 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer’s monumental study of Hitler’s German empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of the 20th century’s blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of a vital and enduring classic.
-
-
A couple of flat spots but otherwise great..
- By Paul on 2018-02-12
-
Europe
- A History
- Written by: Norman Davies
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 61 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Norman Davies captures it all - the rise and fall of Rome, the sweeping invasions of Alaric and Atilla, the Norman Conquests, the Papal struggles for power, the Renaissance and the Reformation, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, Europe's rise to become the powerhouse of the world, and its eclipse in our own century, following two devastating World Wars.
-
-
Very dry in delivery and information
- By William Michael McCallum on 2021-03-04
Publisher's Summary
In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway.
At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. She draws on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality, and strange aesthetics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of Iron Curtain.
What the critics say
More from the same
Author:
What listeners say about Iron Curtain
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Josiah Logozar
- 2021-03-30
Brilliant and Informative
Great for gaining a better understanding of Soviet communisim and its effect in eastern Europe.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- jackifus
- 2012-12-08
Important story, imperfectly executed
Few books detail the suffering of the Polish people during and after the Second World War. That being the case, I'm grateful that Anne Applebaum researched and wrote this book as the information contained therein is rare and valuable. I found her description of the Eastern European social context at the close of the war to be especially so.
She treats horrors visited upon the Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Czechs, Germans, and Jews with incredible clarity and with a rare touch that brings context to those horrors and allows for an appreciation of suffering by one or other group that does not diminish horrors visited upon others.
Her work here is admirable.
Unfortunately, the book does not hang together especially well.
She structures the book in chapters each describing a component of Soviet occupation (Policemen, Violence, Ethnic Cleansing, Radio, Politics...). Each of these components combine to create a context within which Soviet occupation was able to take root, grow in influence, and "flower" into its particular flavor of totalitarianism.
Each chapter then contains a series of anecdotes that describe how the chapter subject was realized in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.
In theory, the above structure could work well, but I had trouble with it in this book.
Any overarching thread felt subsumed by anecdotes. Chapters launch into episodes about Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia but without a clear sense of how each anecdote or episode fits into a larger thesis. Some chapters have a closing few sentences that draw back to a central notion, but while reading, I lost a sense of what about a given anecdote was important. And then, without a paragraph to help put the story just heard into a broader framework, another anecdote would follow. So I was left with a collection of stories without a concrete feeling of why each was important or how it fit into a broader picture.
The author has done quite a bit of research and she's eager to demonstrate it through the inclusion of quite a bit of detail. I wish she would have provided more interpretation of that detail to lend the book greater coherence.
I will recommend this book to friends and colleagues because its subject is so important and books about it are so scarce. I will however not recommend it unreservedly.
The narrator is capable and improves after the opening section which is made up of a series of quotes. Unfortunately, her pronunciation of Polish place names is frustratingly mediocre, as though she didn't approach their pronunciation seriously. Aside from that, she improves over the course of the reading and is not unpleasant. This is not an easy book to narrate and the narrator does pretty well to lend shape to text that hasn't much shape on its own.
She deserves 4 stars in general, but her pronunciation mistakes are so careless that I remove a star.
The subject of the book is important enough to lift the "overall" star score though its realization here is imperfect.
It's a worthwhile read.
35 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Doug
- 2012-12-23
How to Devalue Human Beings – A Handbook
Excellent book about a terrible era! When horrors are so pervasive as to become commonplace….what happens to our compass? One Audible review says that the book was confusing, which it wasn’t. The reviewer incorrectly summarizes that the book is about Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. But it’s about Poland, Hungary and EAST GERMANY, which is almost impossible to get wrong if he actually read this book.
I recommend digging into this one…dial back the clock to 1945-1956 and bear witness to goings on behind the Iron Curtain. Socialist societies do not die at the onset of failure…they live on, they limp forward, unable by ideology to see how deformed they have become. Most of our understanding about communism and socialism is waning as The 20th Century drifts into history, along with all its hard fought lessons. We may be forgetting why our free market system is superior to the brutal alternatives.
The book shows us that to ‘free’ humanity, you must first eliminate the enslavers. To eliminate the enslavers, you must have control of the society. To control society, you must have power. To maintain power, you must control the political system. To control the political system, you must control public opinion. To control public opinion, you must control what people think. In order to control what people think, you must control humanity. Such is the paradox of idealism and reality.
But ‘Iron Curtain’ does not discuss this philosophically. (Thank you!). Anne gives us her best effort here…she painstakingly illustrates with documentation, interviews, quotes, facts, figures, raw data, and real stories just what the human experience behind the Iron Curtain was like. Her details come at us like the planes of the Berlin airlift….one after the other in an unbroken chain. She reminds us that Poland, Hungary, and East Germany were once rich and vibrant cultures, as unique and flowering as France and Italy…yet these eastern counterparts have been somehow erased from our thoughts; they are simply ‘Eastern Bloc’ countries or ‘former Soviet satellites.’ Poland, Hungary, and East Germany seem blank and sterile, almost clones of anonymous nations. Not true. They were made that way. Clicking play will show you how, and remember....this all actually happened.
33 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Igor R. Efimov
- 2013-05-24
Reliving the cold war...
What did you love best about Iron Curtain?
An insightful, well researched book. I grew up in a Siberian "closed" town in 1970s, which was build by Gulag prisoners before I was born. I spent my childhood behind three rows of barbed wires and had a happy childhood in this Soviet version of "gated community", which was not on the map. Interestingly, my home town Zheleznogorsk is still not on the map - Google maps missed it for some reason. My small town produced refined plutonium and spy satellites. In nearly 30 years I lived in the USSR before moving to the USA, I had no idea what was happening outside USSR, not only in the capitalist West, but even in the socialist East. We just never had a chance and thus did not even dream about traveling the world, until Soviet Union collapsed and suddenly everything become possible. Now I am trying to catch up with all the missed opportunities - and travel 30-40 times a year.
Book is a bit single sided though. I wish I could discuss it with the author. I live in Missouri now, not too far from Westminster College in Fulton MO, where the famous "Iron Curtain" speech was delivered by Winston Churchill in 1946. A week later the transcript of this speech was on Stalin's desk and infuriated him. It prompted Stalin to approve plans for building my home town among a network of similar "closed" cities of Siberia and for establishing my Alma mater - Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology - the best STEM school in former Soviet Union, which trained many outstanding physicists. It is impossible to go back in time, but what would have been without this speech? I am far from thinking that Stalin would have been different, but historical dynamics might have been not so dramatic in 1946 and on after the speech.
It is sad that the responsibility for rape of Eastern Europe by Stalin's Soviet Union is not acknowledged by the current Russian government, as it was by Germany. Without such a moral statement there will be no reconciliation.
17 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Orsolya Kiss
- 2020-06-23
Great read!
I come from one of these ex-communist countries mentioned in the book. I’ve learned a great deal about my country, the communist party , the ideology, and many other topics. I enjoyed this book and recommend it to others as well.
The reason I gave only 4 stars for the Performance is that the narrator had a hard time pronouncing foreign names. I know it is a difficult task, but someone should carefully train narrators in the pronunciation of foreign names and words. For example, “sz” in Polish might be pronounced as “sh,” but in Hungarian, it is just an “s.” Some of names from all three languages were really hard to understand, and if I wanted to do further research on the subject, I’d run into difficulties, this being an audiobook where I don’t see the written text.
Otherwise, I am glad I bought the book. I will surely reread it in the future.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- J. A. McCarron
- 2019-01-25
Great book glad it is written before 2016
The book covers a large topic but she really did a great job keeping it entertaining with interesting anecdotes while also maintaining the larger themes and lessons to be learned.
She identifies many of the methods used in the Soviet Union's countries including control of a secret police force. For those Americans who are not concerned about the politicization of our FBI (for either party) you should read this book. A few arrests will keep hundreds in line.
Also there is the press. How it can become subtly biased and that can snowball. Of course along with that there is the propaganda. Everyone who is not with the left is a Nazi. Everyone who is not with the left is extreme right wing.
Then there is the undermining of any other institutions that might compete with the state - the church and other cultural groups.
I had listened to a few interviews of Anne Applebaum before reading this book where she attacks Donald Trump. I am not a big fan of Trump but it seems to me that the left is using most of these tactics much more than Trump has been. That said I think the most common mistake is to claim that now is just like some other time in history. From her interviews I am pretty sure she would agree every time in history is unique.
Nonetheless lessons can be learned and dirty tactics can be identified. This book was written before the Trump and the wars between conservatives and the left leaning media. So the books coverage of this time is like pure snow. I just hope she never does another edition which might be tainted.
I thought the narrator was excellent. I love history but it can be dry especially when the book is 25+ hours. This narrator I thought did a great job. BTW it is not like the book was too long. I was always excited to hear more throughout the book and I am glad she did not cut anything out. I would actually like to listen to more about this time in history including some countries that weren't especially covered in this book such as Romania and Czechoslovakia. (This book mainly covers Hungary, East Germany, and Poland.)
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jay Cook
- 2013-01-28
From Stetin in the Baltic....
I had looked forward to listening to this and was a tad disappointed, but my expectations had been in the wrong direction. I had expected a much more detailed discussion of the policies crafted by Stalin and Zhdanov for the overlordship of their new satrapies. Instead this concentrated much more on the puppet governments themselves, and on the social movements that fulminated in their respective countries as the USSR felt its way through the first years of occupation, slowly strengthening its grip.
The book spends a fair amount of time on the backgrounds and policies of the "little Stalins", such as Ulbrecht in the DDR. Their local struggles in implementing the policies handed down by the Kremlin are discussed in depth, particularly in East Germany, Hungary and Poland. Their difficult positions - essentially acting as the local representatives of the USSR - might almost be pitiable were they not typically willing accomplices of the NKVD.
The narration was, to my ear, bland. It may be that I'm used to having my European History read to me by a male with a British accent, but I found the reader to be lacking.
As a companion piece to this, I would highly recommend "Revolution 1989" by Victor Sebestyen. After hearing about the establishment of these dystopias, a few hours listening to the story of their dismantlement will make you feel that some wrongs, in the end, are inevitably reversed.
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- S. Campbell
- 2020-11-08
Every American should read this
History that if forgotten may be relived. People should understand what happened in Eastern Europe after the War and the tactics that the communists used. Well read and excellent writing.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ryan
- 2019-01-19
Communism is just as Evil as Facism (NAZIsm)
Another great take down of the Evils of big government, of community over individual, of planned vs free market. As if the body wasn't enough, the Epilogue made for a great final ko punch.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nate the Grate
- 2013-02-25
Those that do not learn from history...
Would you listen to Iron Curtain again? Why?
Are we doomed to repeat it? The importance of the subject makes it worth the time investment. I wish it was part of everyone's education.
What did you like best about this story?
The frightening insights into state-ism. There really is no difference between them and any other group of fanatics who believe that their worldview should be forced on others, and the unbelievers should be shot. I learned a lot. I understand their mindset / paradigm better now.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John
- 2012-12-21
the tragedy of Eastern Europe
Ms. Applebaum has written an excellent book, again. The research is thorough, the story engrossing, and the style reads well. The political history background comes to life through extensive use of memoirs to add human experiences.
Obviously, this book will be most interesting to people who are intrigued by this region: Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic, and to a lesser degree Bulgaria and Romania.
The author dreams that people will read her book and understand that Western apologists were wrong to paint rosy pictures of the Eastern socialist countries. However, the sad reality is most people disregard facts and stubbornly cling to bad ideas.
John Christmas, author of "Democracy Society"
5 people found this helpful