Young Stalin32 reviews Simon Sebag Montefiore Knopf, 2007 The makings of Russia's future master + in laconical praise + Stalin was a rolling stone + Clairfies the character brilliantly. + Not a time to be Quaker-Papist socialist babbling about the sanctity of human life!             Comrades!: A History of World Communism5 reviews Robert Service Harvard University Press, 2007 An excellent survey + Workmanlike Service has done an excellent job compressing a major topic - the rise and fall of communism - into a single volume. This makes a good starting off point for anyone who wants to learn about the subject. The books is divided up into manageable chapters based largely on geography, making it an easy ...             The Captive Mind15 reviews Czeslaw Milosz Vintage, 1990 The reasons why + Essential + This will help you understand the real affect of communism on a country + Visions of the Utopian Ideal + Another peal to truth against totalitarian, war apologist confused             The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression105 reviews Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, ... Harvard University Press, 1999 Review of Reviews + Could not be more spot on. + The Black Book of Communism I read this book some time ago and it engaged me big time, so I was surprised to see the number of negative reviews here. I read each of them carefully to see what those reviewers didn't like. Several of them mention the evils of Capitalism and how many deaths capitalists are responsible for. ...             The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia16 reviews Orlando Figes Metropolitan Books, 2007 More Anecdotal Evidence of Communism's Crimes + This book will haunt you. + Shocking..... + A must-read for anyone interested in modern Russian history + Phenomenal             Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, The Golden Age, The Breakdown5 reviews Leszek Kolakowski W. W. Norton, 2008 A High Point of Intellectual History + A Monumental work + Read it and weep! This is an outstanding description and analysis of the history of Marxism as a philosophic enterprise and doctrine. Kolakowski's goal is a fair and lucid history of Marxism as an intellectual enterprise. This is a highly ambitious undertaking requiring familiarity with a huge range of writers and ...             A PEOPLE'S TRAGEDY: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 1891-1924. Orlando. Figes Pimlico, 1997             Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism45 reviews Joshua Muravchik Encounter Books, 2002 A terrific survey of the history of socialism that is often glossed over or ignored + It opened my eyes + Generational Forgetting + An excellent telling of the realities of socialist history that are usually glossed over or ignored             Lenin: A Biography25 reviews Robert Service Belknap Press, 2002 Balanced, definitive biography + Great Book Whether you love him or hate him. Like Lenin's life, this book goes through slow, quiet times as well as periods of frenetic activity. Especially interesting are sections on Lenin's childhood and family, the October Revolution itself, and Lenin's final political struggle with Stalin as he battled his failing health. The chapters ...             The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956 : An Experiment in Literary Investigation I-II105 reviews Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn Harpercollins, 1974 The nail in the coffin of the Soviet State + The single greatest literary work of the twentieth century. + A STYLISTIC ACHIEVEMENT ALSO + Well worth reading             Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare25 reviews Philip Short Holt Paperbacks, 2006 A sober look at one of the 20th century's deadliest regimes + Humans as oxen + The biography of Brother Number One and Cambodia. Those looking for a biography of Saloth Sar (aka Pol Pot) may be surprised to find that this is not so much a chronicle of Pol's life, but rather a thorough account of Cambodian political history from the post-World War II era on. Nonetheless this is an invaluable book about the tradegy that the ...             Mao: The Unknown Story254 reviews Jung Chang, Jon Halliday Anchor, 2006 Much new research, the style matters not + Exhaustive Masterpiece! + The passive-aggressive way to world domination... This is my third biography off Mao this summer, following Lucian Pye's Mao: The Man in the Leader, and Li Zhisui's portrait of Mao based on his time as the Great Helmsman's personal physician. And I'vee recently read Walter Laquer's Staklain: The Glasnost Revelations, and Dmitri Volkogonov's ...             Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant40 reviews Humberto Fontova Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005 Hooray for Humberto for having the guts to write this book + Not all liberals are stupid + Ask a Cuban! I love this book and cannot wait for Humberto's next book on Che. I find his information very well researched and reflective of his extensive and informed studies in Latin American History in which he has his Masters degree from Tulane University. I am a first generation American. My mother ...             Gulag: A History72 reviews Anne Applebaum Anchor, 2004 Like science fiction--portrays a strange yet familiar world. + Could I have some coffee please? + An Unparalleled Look at Life and Death in Stalin's Death Camps! + The big and the small prison zone             Animal Farm and 198424 reviews George Orwell Harcourt, 2003 Worthy literature that transcends the genre of political fable + WORTH READING AGAIN - AND HAVING IN YOUR LIBRARY + Boy, this cover is attractive. + Great book, but not enough commentary + Two Valuable Elements of Our Literary and Political History             Stalin2 reviews Simon Sebag Montefiore Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd ), 2004 Mass Murder + Six hundred pages of Solitude. This is the definitive biography of Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili (Stalin) and his evil dictatorship. From his birth in 1878 through his rise to power in the 1920's, the "Great Terror" of the late 1930's, the conflict of World War II, the horrific post-war period to his death in 1953, Stalin's ...             Darkness at Noon: A Novel17 reviews Arthur Koestler Scribner, 2006 Psychological Examination of Stalinist Show Trials + Novel of Ideas + "1984" in 1938 + Brilliant, insightful pessimism. + An Intriguing Consideration of the Struggle of Man Between Honor and Ideology             Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him61 reviews Humberto Fontova Sentinel HC, 2007 Che and Anderson Exposed! + Great Book,Actually Truthful and Not Some Bias,Bubbling Book about A Murderer. If Humberto Fontova's book were not so disturbing, I would call it a page-turner. And in as much as it grips you from the first sentence, it is still difficult to read of the first-hand accounts of such brutalities which, sadly, fill this book from beginning to end. Unlike Jon Lee Anderson's ...             Stalin: A Biography16 reviews Robert Service Belknap Press, 2006 Stalin is Still A Mystery Service has written a well-researched history of Stalin's life here. It is very thorough and complete and yet it is still quite readable. Unfortunately though, Stalin still remains the cipher that he always has been. No new insight into his lust for power emerges from the six hundred plus pages of ...             The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956 : An Experiment in Literary Investigation I-II105 reviews Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn Harpercollins, 1974 The nail in the coffin of the Soviet State + The single greatest literary work of the twentieth century. + A STYLISTIC ACHIEVEMENT ALSO + Well worth reading