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Iron Curtain
- The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 26 hrs and 39 mins
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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.
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- By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Nora Seligman Favorov - translator
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin, the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history.
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Loved it, but wouldn't want to live it
- By Neil on 01-12-20
By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, and others
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Year Zero
- A History of 1945
- By: Ian Buruma
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
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Year Zero is a landmark reckoning with the greatdrama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and anew, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come across Asia and all of continental Europe. It was the greatest global powervacuum in history, and out of the often vicious power struggles thatensued emerged the modern world as we know it.
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Great historical overview
- By marykk on 10-14-13
By: Ian Buruma
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A Thousand Hills
- Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It
- By: Stephen Kinzer
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
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Paul Kagame grew up as a wretched refugee. He and a group of comrades, determined to force their way back home after a generation of exile, designed one of the most audacious covert operations in the history of clandestine war. Then, after taking power, they amazed the world by stabilizing and reviving their devastated country.
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Best Most Comprehensive Work on Rwanda
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By: Stephen Kinzer
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Great Catastrophe
- Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide
- By: Thomas de Waal
- Narrated by: David Rapkin
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
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The destruction of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16 was the greatest atrocity of World War I. Around one million Armenians were killed, and the survivors were scattered across the world. Although it is now a century old, the issue of what most of the world calls the Armenian Genocide of 1915 is still a live and divisive issue that mobilizes Armenians across the world, shapes the identity and politics of modern Turkey, and has consumed the attention of U.S. politicians for years.
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- By shaq on 02-26-19
By: Thomas de Waal
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The Death of Democracy
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- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
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Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In this dramatic audiobook, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time. Benjamin Carter Hett is one of America’s leading scholars of 20th-century Germany and a gifted storyteller whose portraits of the feckless politicians of the Weimar Republic show how fragile democracy can be when those in power do not respect it.
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I can't trust the author's account of these events
- By Example: Mark Twain on 11-10-19
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The Invention of Russia
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- By: Arkady Ostrovsky
- Narrated by: Michael Page
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The end of Communism and breakup of the Soviet Union was a time of euphoria around the world, but Russia today is violently anti-American and dangerously nationalistic. So how did we go from the promise of those days to the autocratic police state of Putin's new Russia? The Invention of Russia reaches back to the darkest days of the Cold War to tell the story of the fight for the soul of a nation.
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Sad Story of Russia's Abandonment of Liberalism
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The Holocaust
- A New History
- By: Laurence Rees
- Narrated by: Eric Vale
- Length: 19 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Laurence Rees has spent 25 years meeting the survivors and perpetrators of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. In this sweeping history, he combines this testimony with the latest academic research to investigate how history's greatest crime was possible. Rees argues that while hatred of the Jews was at the epicenter of Nazi thinking, we cannot fully understand the Holocaust without considering Nazi plans to kill millions of non-Jews as well.
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FANTASTIC BOOK, BUT HORRIBLE READING
- By Aspen on 08-31-17
By: Laurence Rees
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Lenin
- The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror
- By: Victor Sebestyen
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
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Drawing on new research, including the diaries, memoirs, and personal letters of both Lenin and his friends, Victor Sebestyen's unique biography - the first in English in nearly two decades - is not only a political examination of one of the most important historical figures of the 20th century but a portrait of Lenin the man. Unexpectedly, Lenin was someone who loved nature, hunting, and fishing and could identify hundreds of species of plants, a despotic ruler whose closest ties and friendships were with women.
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Lenin totally took an extra piece of that cake.
- By John Gathly on 05-14-19
By: Victor Sebestyen
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Israel
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Israel is a tiny state, and yet it has captured the world's attention, aroused its imagination, and, lately, been the object of its opprobrium. Why does such a small country speak to so many global concerns? More pressingly: Why does Israel make the decisions it does? And what lies in its future? We cannot answer these questions until we understand Israel's people and the questions and conflicts, the hopes and desires, that have animated their conversations and actions.
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Excellent, mildly but honestly biased, terrible narration
- By Schaq on 04-01-17
By: Daniel Gordis
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What listeners say about Iron Curtain
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- Patrick McHugh
- 09-16-19
Long, but definitely organized well
Great history. Scratches the surface a our the void left by the Nazi's. Stalin was a huge jerk and should have been dealt with early.
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1 person found this helpful
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- John
- 12-21-12
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"
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7 people found this helpful
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- Julian D. Wynnyckyj
- 09-23-15
Iron Curtain
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Author of Gulag, same meticulous scholarship of how Central and Eastern Europe were sold into ideological slavery from 1945-1989, what happens when well meaning democracies do not stand in the way of evil.
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- Chris Corsini
- 02-04-22
Applebaum is a National Treasure
I'm so thankful for Anne Applebaum. She is writing about the topics very few others will even touch. In a time when Russian despotism is on the march and American schoolchildren are taught what a great place the Soviet Union was, Applebaum (no conservative she) is such an important voice. I've read her Red Famine (absolutely amazing - should be required reading in schools) and look forward to cracking open her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag next (I'm going chronologically in reverse). Iron Curtain is a bit more technical than the more narrative-based Red Famine, but it was still excellent and I highly recommend it.
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- Doug
- 12-23-12
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.
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40 people found this helpful
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- Bastler
- 01-02-13
Back to the glorious fifties!
Where does Iron Curtain rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
and to the 1940s too. One of the more interesting books that this former student of political science has read (listened to) in recent memory.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Iron Curtain?
Seeing examples of how some people made it through this period relatively intact (most didn't).
Which character – as performed by Cassandra Campbell – was your favorite?
I was most interested by the people of East Germany -- because I speak German -- but the events in Hungary and Poland were also of interest to me.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No, it was too long for that.
Any additional comments?
I learned that I have a lot to learn about eastern European life behind the Iron Curtain.
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- JoAnn
- 12-04-12
Too long to really enjoy
I am a great fan of history and thought this one would be a good listen after hearing the author interviewed on NPR. Unfortunately for me there are just too many details and it starts getting boring after awhile. I found myself skipping through because I wanted it to be done.
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5 people found this helpful
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- S. Hewitt
- 10-15-13
Lots of NE Europe, not much about SE
Is there anything you would change about this book?
The title, subtitle, and publisher's notes give the impression that the book covers all of Eastern Europe. Not far into the book, I came to realize that the Balkans, my particular area of interest, are barely covered. Had I known this, I probably would not have purchased the book. It is primarily a book about Poland and East Germany, not Eastern Europe.
I agree with other reviewers that the author goes into much detail but gives almost no analysis or synthesis. A downside of listening to rather than reading this book is that it is difficult to keep all of the different individuals straight. I don't think of myself particularly as a visual learner, but I found it difficult to remember who was who.
Was Iron Curtain worth the listening time?
Definitely for those with an interest in postwar Germany and Poland. For myself--no sure.
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- Katia
- 11-08-20
Perhaps too much detail
The book gave me a much better understanding, in a very concrete way, of life under the Communist system in the Eastern bloc. The writer clearly did a great deal of research and cared about her subject, but it was a bit of an exhausting read.
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- Camden
- 05-04-24
The tingle pride for what Eastern Europe overcame
This book does a fantastic job explaining the atrocities Slavic culture overcame. With such amazing imagery and information, I couldn’t help finishing this book with a sense of pride for what these countries went through. Thank you for your AMAZING book.
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