|
|
List Price: $35.00 Amazon.com's Price: $23.10 You Save: $11.90 (34%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 306.8509470904 EAN: 9780805074611 Edition: 1st ISBN: 0805074619 Label: Metropolitan Books Manufacturer: Metropolitan Books Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 740 Publication Date: November 13, 2007 Publisher: Metropolitan Books Release Date: November 13, 2007 Studio: Metropolitan Books Editorial Review: Product Description: From the award-winning author of A People’s Tragedy and Natasha’s Dance, a landmark account of what private life was like for Russians in the worst years of Soviet repression There have been many accounts of the public aspects of Stalin’s dictatorship: the arrests and trials, the enslavement and killing in the gulags. No previous book, however, has explored the regime’s effect on people’s personal lives, what one historian called “the Stalinism that entered into all of us.” Now, drawing on a huge collection of newly discovered documents, The Whisperers reveals for the first time the inner world of ordinary Soviet citizens as they struggled to survive amidst the mistrust, fear, compromises, and betrayals that pervaded their existence. Moving from the Revolution of 1917 to the death of Stalin and beyond, Orlando Figes re-creates the moral maze in which Russians found themselves, where one wrong turn could destroy a family or, perversely, end up saving it. He brings us inside cramped communal apartments, where minor squabbles could lead to fatal denunciations; he examines the Communist faithful, who often rationalized even their own arrest as a case of mistaken identity; and he casts a humanizing light on informers, demonstrating how, in a repressive system, anyone could easily become a collaborator. A vast panoramic portrait of a society in which everyone spoke in whispers—whether to protect their families and friends, or to inform upon them—The Whisperers is a gripping account of lives lived in impossible times. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - BrilliantThis is one the great history books of our times. Based on hundreds of family archives and interviews with the last survivors of the Stalinist regime, it opens up the hidden private lives of ordinary people, exploring family relationships and the interior lives of individuals. Brilliantly researched and written with compassion, it is full of heartbreaking human tragedies, stories of betrayal and lost relationships. It is a very draining read emotionally, but not depressing, for there are also stories ... Read More Rating: - Superb and chillingOver the last decade or so, a flurry of excellent works about Stalin and his times have appeared on bookstore shelves. But even among this stellar company, The Whisperers stands out. It draws on oral histories, interviews and privately-written manuscripts -- the raw material that is the first draft of history -- of all kinds to describe the experience of everyday life in Stalin's Russia. What was it like for a "kulak", a party worker, a scientist or engineer, a journalist, a housewife, to try and survive ... Read More Rating: - A moving and important bookThis must be the most important book on the Soviet Union since The Gulag Archipelago, in 1973. It is based on hundreds of family archives and thousands of interviews with the survivors of the Stalin Terror which Figes and his team of researchers have spent years collecting from homes throughout Russia. The stories which they tell are amazing, heartbreaking. I defy anyone not to be moved. Figes is a great writer - anyone who has read Natasha's Dance or the multi prize-winning A People's Tragedy ... Read More Rating:  - GOOD JOURNALISM, BAD HISTORYThis book cannot be classified as history.To write something based mostly on a myriad of interviews does not qualify it under the category of scientific research.It distorts and minimizes the historical framework of those horrible Stalin times by ignoring the overall historical dimension. . A great disappointment and a great miss indeed. Rating: - Dangerous whispers"The Whisperers" by Orlando Figes is an outstanding piece of scholarship painting a harrowing picture of the results which Stalinist terror had on its victims and on the society it created. The book combines facts of historical developments at various significant stages of the Soviet bid for power, its consolidation, the phases of Stalin's rule and post-Stalinist developments with a wide variety of biographical data. In addition to following the life of one outstanding literary figure - Konstantin Simonov - ... Read More |
