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"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."--pub. desc.
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Previews available in: Swedish English
Subjects
Politics and government, Political culture, Social conditions, History, Relations, Political persecution, Communism, nyt:hardcover-political-books=2012-12-09, New York Times bestseller, Communism, europe, Europe, eastern, social conditions, Soviet union, history, 1925-1953, Soviet union, foreign relations, europe, eastern, Europe, eastern, politics and government, Europe, eastern, history, Communist countries, politics and government, Kommunism, Historia, Politisk kultur, Politisk forfoljelse, Sociala forhallanden, Internationella relationerTimes
20th century, 1945-1989Showing 3 featured editions. View all 18 editions?
Edition | Availability |
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1
Jarnridan: [det kommunistiska maktovertagandet i Osteuropa 1945-1956]
2013, Bonnier
in Swedish
9100135194 9789100135195
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2
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56
2012, Allen Lane
hardcover
0713998687 9780713998689
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Libraries near you:
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3
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56
2012, Doubleday
Hardcover
in English
0385515693 9780385515696
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Book Details
Edition Notes
Source title: Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56
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Work Description
In the follow-up to her previous book "Gulag," the author, a journalist delivers a 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. Josef Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In this book, the author 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 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 is captured in the pages of this book.
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August 15, 2024 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
February 13, 2024 | Edited by dcapillae | Merge works |
February 13, 2024 | Edited by dcapillae | fix author |
February 13, 2024 | Edited by dcapillae | Merge works |
November 5, 2019 | Created by ImportBot | Imported from amazon.com record |