Overview
"Long before Alexander Solzhenitsyn's ""One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"" (1962) shocked the Western world with its frightening description of a typical day in a forced-labor camp during the Stalin era, some readers in the West already knew of prison life in the Soviet Union, the Eastern bloc, and other Communist countries. A powerful genre of ""gulag"" literature had emerged in the late 1930s and developed throughout the cold war. Books by survivors revealed in graphic detail the systematic implementation of a totalitarian police state that induced terror in its citizens through torture, imprisonment in slave labor camps, and death. In ""Enemies of the State"", Donald and Agnieszka Critchlow have selected excerpts from nine of the most widely read books from this gulag literature. The stories are riveting and inspiring. They are dramatic by their nature and illustrate humanity at its heroic best. But they have historical value too, because in addition to providing a ghastly record of Communist terror, they also explain why Western readers developed such deep mistrust of ""peaceful coexistence"" with any Communist nation. Memoirs from survivors of Communist prisons confirmed beliefs that the Communists could not be trusted. They told readers that Communist regimes operated through deception and denial, and that sympathetic visitors to the Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam, and Cuba were too often misled by the carefully staged performances of Communist officials. In short, gulag literature reinforced among American anti-Communists the idea of an apocalyptic struggle between communism and Western Christendom."
Full Product Details
Author: Donald T. Critchlow, co-editor of American Conspiracies Revealed and author of The Conservative ,
Agnieszka Critchlow
Publisher: Ivan R Dee, Inc
Imprint: Ivan R Dee, Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 16.80cm
, Height: 2.10cm
, Length: 21.10cm
Weight: 0.331kg
ISBN: 9781566635219
ISBN 10: 1566635217
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 21 July 2003
Audience:
General/trade
,
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
General
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.
Reviews
These accounts by largely forgotten figures [offer] a strength in the face of the inversion of truth and rationality that is incomprehensible.
Author Information
Donald T. Critchlow teaches American history at Saint Louis University. He has written and edited eleven books, including Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government, and Studebaker: The Life and Death of an American Corporation. He lives in St. Louis. Agnieszka Critchlow teaches in the American Studies program at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.
