In which I comment on reading Anne Applebaum's "Gulag"
Gulag by Anne Applebaum
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
She's a fine journalist, but she's no historian. It seems well researched, and certainly well-footnoted, but it basically comes across as a mind-numbing tale of how millions of people, represented by a group of selected memoirists, suffered terribly for dubious political/philosophical reasons.
I think it's a good attempt at trying to approach a historical era from the point of view of the victims, rather than the perpetrators, but it also shows how difficult that is to carry off. I'm still waiting for the book that can give me what feels like real insight into the phenomenon of early-to-mid-century European social and political tumult.
But maybe I will just have to dig it out for myself from fact-packed tomes like this one (given that I'm limited to English-language sources).
Also, she does a pretty good job of not letting her own political biases take over (they are there, particularly if you know her background, or are sensitive to clues) but she seems to be letting facts speak for themselves on the whole. I would say, howver, that her conclusions in the epilogue are not well supported. Also, the prose, while certainly readable, can be clunky.
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