Gulag

A History

De: Anne Applebaum

Narrado por: Laural Merlington

Pulitzer Prize, General Nonfiction, 2004

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.

Applebaum intimately recreates what life was like in the camps and links them to the larger history of the Soviet Union. Immediately recognized as a landmark and long-overdue work of scholarship, Gulag is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand the history of the 20th century.

©2007 Anne Applebaum (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Nice compliment to Solzhenitsyn

Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archepelago is better because it gives you the soul and first hand account and is written by a great master--an enduring legacy worth even of re-reading. A master storyteller who can make you cry and cringe and almost relive the whole ghastly tragedy is the sort of history that plants deeply the will that this should never happen again. But Applebaum's account is good history and fills in many details from a variety of sources closed to Solzhenitsyn. in fact, Solzhenitsyn hoped that someone would do exactly this, and calls for it in his own magnum opus. I can see why Applebaum won the Pulizter prize.--well deserved. Applebaum leaves us with the cold assurance that such totalitarianism will most certainly happen again. Let's prove her wrong, even if our struggle is vanity and chasing after the sun. Imagine, Stalin with FB, Google, Microsoft, cloud drives and Twitter to hack, and complex algorithms to build cases against all who love freedom.

WOW! Should be Read by All Students to Prevent the Evils if Marxism!

This book presents the real and shocking history as well as the danger of Marxism/Socialism. Every time this political ideology gains enough power the horrors are repeated. God help us in America as some are using propaganda right now to drag us down that road! The only thing protecting us is the construction. In true Marxist form a young college boy I know recently screamed at his elderly grandmother “F___ the Constitution!”

EPIC!

Made my eyes water. Worth second visit. A book for the past, now and the future.

Great book with bad narration.

I loved this book and Applebaum’s overview of the gulags. My only complaint about the book is to wish it were longer. I would love to hear more depth on some of the topics she covered in broad strokes.

The narration, unfortunately, kept getting in the way of my enjoyment of this book. While Merlington is clearly an excellent narrator for most books, her complete lack of knowledge of Russian kept be alternating between loving the book and wanting to return the audiobook.

When narrating a book about a foreign culture with foreign names, the producers should be careful to get narrators who can handle that language. It was bad enough when Merlington couldn’t properly pronounce a name like Dzerzhinsky correctly; her inability to correctly pronounce fairly well known names like Beria and Vladivostok should have immediately ruled her out of

brutally honest

an amazing story of how inhumane the human mind can become in order to rule their own country.

Dark history of USSR

The book was great. Author gave us a glimpse into dark history of USSR that is often firgotten or overlooked. Narrator did a pretty good job narrating. However, one would think that narrator would learn how to pronounce Russian words used throughout the book correctly. The pronunciations of Russian names and Russian words were grossly butchered.

Pronunciation is bad

The narrator cannot correctly pronounce Russian names at all. For a book written by an author as well versed in Eastern Europe, the narrator insulted her work by butchering pronunciation to the my great displeasure. If you're reading this narrator, Bukhta Nakhodka is pronounced Boo-(kh makes a hard h) -ta Na-khodka not Bookta nak hotka, the ship Dzurma is pronounced as Jur (like in jury) -ma, not the dezurema. Such butchering of names really killed much of the experience for this otherwise great book. Other than this, the narrator did ok.

mixed feelings

The story itself is immensely sad, and I actually had to take a break from it. At the same time, it is utterly fascinating, though the DREADFUL pronunciation of the foreign names sometimes makes it challenging to focus. Still, I cannot recommend the book highly enough - it is extremely well written and very, very important.

Excellent Work

This is my third Anne Applebaum book. I listened to them basically in the reverse order she wrote them - Red Famine first, then Iron Curtain, then this one. Gulag was the hardest to actually listen to. It was the least linear and had the most abstract narrative. There were moments when it was a bit tough to follow. That said, it is an excellent book and very worthy of the Pulitzer Prize it won. Anne Applebaum is a national treasure and her work is more important now than ever. I actually think she’s quite courageous - Putin has killed people for less than writing the things she’s written.

And yes the narrator’s pronunciation is atrocious. I don’t speak a word of Russian and even I struggled with her pronunciation. That said her actual voice is very good and if you can just bear with it she’s fine.

excellent and thorough

Very worthwhile, particularly in the context of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (even though it was written prior to the current ongoing atrocities)