The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3: An Experiment in Literary Investigation
“BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY.” —Time
Volume 3 of the Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece: Solzhenitsyn's moving account of resistance within the Soviet labor camps and his own release after eight years. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
“The greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever leveled in modern times.” —George F. Kennan
“It is impossible to name a book that had a greater effect on the political and moral consciousness of the late twentieth century.” —David Remnick, New Yorker
“Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece. . . . The Gulag Archipelago helped create the world we live in today.” —Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History, from the foreword
Reviews (178)
Who else is here because of Jordan Peterson?
Talk about an eye opening experience. How did we not learn any of this in school? Shame. The imagery of the sewer system flushing the perceived worthlessness of life is a heartbreaking one. I'm a third of the way through the book. It's hard to read but entirely necessary.
Must Read
This is a must read and should be required reading at the universities. Young people need to understand that it is important to truly understand the ideologies that you latch on to as they have very real consequences.
The line between good and evil runs down every human heart
Already knew a lot of this history but Gulag is on Jordan Peterson's reading list so.... Gulag is not the story of Aleksandr Solzhenitsy, nor is it a history book- it is much more than that. The real value, and I think a main reason its on JP's list, is in the underlying message that this is not the story of Russia, or the Russian people, or Stalin- or anyone- but of everyone. Every single one of us, every day, in ways big and small, acts in ways that serve to bring forth either a better world, or the hell of the Gulag Archipelago. Be warned, this is some very unpleasant reading. No one wants to think of being imprisoned indefinitely in a "cell" too small even to sit or lie down in, let alone in one with so many bedbugs they are falling off the ceiling and crawling from everywhere, so many you cannot kill them all even if you could stomach the stench. But it will be worth it to absorb the lesson that this is the cost and end result of lies. Speak the truth. At whatever cost. If you want to know how high the cost of lies can be, read the Gulag Archipelago.
One of the greatest tragedies in the history of mankind
One of the greatest tragedies in the history of mankind, period. The Soviets outdid Hitler and imprisoned and killed around 14 million of their own people. It's mind boggling! And it's true. Sadly, it's still happening, on a much smaller scale, but this system is still in use to this day. Solzhenitsyn has done a wonderful job of collecting numerous prisoner accounts and turning them into a very readable series of literature, despite the danger it brought to him and those close to him. He will always be a hero of mankind, in my eyes.
AMAZING!
I LOVE history, but was surprised I had such little knowledge of the events that transpired in Russia during this time period. I am just stupified as to why this is not taught in schools...well maybe not these days. While it is a somewhat difficult to read book, you will still get the idea as to what is happening. I accidentally bought 2 of these books when I made my purchase. It will certainly go to someone who also enjoys history. I do not regret my purchase at all!!! And it is just too good of a price to pass up. Even if you don't finish it, you will at least get an idea as to what was going on. And honestly, those who don't learn from history, are bound to repeat it. I could see this sort of thing happening again...in one way or another. Thanks to the great Jordan Peterson for recommending this book!!!
The Gulag Archipelago Abridged
Wow!! This book is a real eye opener on the communist utopia of the Soviet Union. The author was a prisoner in the Gulags for many years. This should be taught in high school history class. Most all know about the horrors of NAZI Germany. Few know about the horrors of Communist USSR. That is one reason kids are so easily indoctrinated to the wonders of socialism and other Marxist ideologies. The author won a Nobel Peace Prize for the book. It is well worth the read. I don't feel like I missed much by reading the abridged version. The chapters that were left out were done so with consultation with the author and are marked and titled in the book.
Five Stars
What communists did to Russians was as bad or worse than what Nazis did to Jews. I would add this practical piece of advice: Solzyenitsyn points out that almost all the people hauled away to the Gulag were done so not via forced round-ups of many people at once, but by being picked off by the security forces one by one. In other words, you, the victim, would be stopped in the street, the office, school or in his apartment/flat by one or two men with a car waiting nearby and told, sometimes even politely asked, to "come with us" (remember the scene in Godfather I when Tom Hagen was stopped by "the Turk" while exiting a store after X-Mass shopping and quietly told to "get in the car"?). And you'd go. This method has the virtue of being relatively quiet and hard to notice so that no would be rescuers really noticed the incident and no crowd would ever gather. You went quietly into the night. So, the advice? Always make a BIG stink if anyone tries to take you away. A crowd will gather or someone will record the incident with a phone, perhaps even intervene. Thats your best hope. Someone has to see and bear witness.
alexandr solzhenitsyn really nails it.
this personal account has begun to help me understand my own capacity for evil. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn says 'The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man' i think it has helped me recognize the types of things i have to do to spot evil thoughts and to know how to contend with them. the things i read in this book have made me sick, such that i think about the gulags often. i think about how people starved to death and how they lived or survived by labor or being a 'stoolie'. Despite the horrors of this book i think it has made me a better person. it will make you one as well. please buy this book for your own sake and sakes of those you love.
Best nonfiction I've ever read but Abridging it is an insult
This is a 500 page summary version which excludes references, of the 1600 page original. I thought 500 pages should be enough for soviet camps but I was wrong. Halfway through I dumped this paperback and started reading the original version. Not just because it was packed with more information, not because it was a good read but because abridging it is a serious insult on all those millions of people who were exiled, tortured, and killed.
An autobiography in hell
Solzhenitsyn's autobiography of his experience in the Soviet slave labor camps, an "experiment in literary investigation", stands as a thundering condemnation of the entire rotten enterprise of Bolshevik-Soviet Communism. A great book, which opened tsunamis of controversy and adulation when it was first published, it was abridged magnificently in the 1980s, with the author's full endorsement, losing none of its original titanic force. Anyone and everyone today who would like to understand how and, maybe why a government that promised human liberation, equality and emancipation would begin to enslave its own people, and to consign them to the nothingness of savage internment in remote slave camps where human life was worth nothing at all should read, and re-read this magnificent book.
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