Description
Book SynopsisWinner of the Duff Cooper and Lionel Gelber prizes
In 1932-33, nearly four million Ukrainians died of starvation, having been deliberately deprived of food. It is one of the most devastating episodes in the history of the twentieth century. With unprecedented authority and detail, Red Famine investigates how this happened, who was responsible, and what the consequences were. It is the fullest account yet published of these terrible events.
The book draws on a mass of archival material and first-hand testimony only available since the end of the Soviet Union, as well as the work of Ukrainian scholars all over the world. It includes accounts of the famine by those who survived it, describing what human beings can do when driven mad by hunger. It shows how the Soviet state ruthlessly used propaganda to turn neighbours against each other in order to expunge supposedly ''anti-revolutionary'' elements. It also records the actions of extraordinary i
Trade Review
Meticulously researched, blisteringly written -- Dominic Sandbrook * The Sunday Times (Books of the Year) *
Magisterial and heartbreaking -- Simon Sebag Montefiore * Evening Standard *
Compelling in its detail and in its empathy -- Nick Rennison * The Sunday Times *
Her account will surely become the standard treatment of one of history's great political atrocities -- Timothy Snyder * Washington Post *
An exhaustive, authoritative and eloquent book. She deals with questions that have hitherto lacked unequivocal answers -- Donald Rayfield * Literary Review *
