Search results for ""author jane ann miller""

A unique anthology of Gulag memoirs, edited and annotated by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anne Applebaum Anne Applebaum wields her considerable knowledge of a dark chapter in human history and presents a collection of the writings of survivors of the Gulag, the Soviet concentration camps. Although the opening of the Soviet archives to scholars has made it possible to write the history of this notorious concentration camp system, documents tell only one side of the story. Gulag Voices now fills in the other half.The backgrounds of the writers reflect the extraordinary diversity of the Gulag itself. Here are the personal stories of such figures as Dmitri Likhachev, a renowned literary scholar; Anatoly Marchenko, the son of illiterate laborers; and Alexander Dolgun, an American citizen. These remembrances—many of them appearing in English for the first time, each chosen for both literary and historical value—collectively spotlight the strange moral universe of the camps, as well as the relationships that prisoners had with one another, with their guards, and with professional criminals who lived beside them.A vital addition to the literature of this era,annotated for a generation that no longer remembers the Soviet Union, Gulag Voices will inform, interest, and inspire, offering a source for reflection on human nature itself.

Read more less

“What was the revolution of the 1990s for Russia?” writes Yegor Gaidar. “Was it a hard but salutary road toward the creation of a workable democracy with workable markets, a way for Russia to develop and survive in the twenty-first century? Or was it the prologue to another closed, stultified regime marching to the music of old myths and anthems?” Few are as well-equipped to consider this matter as Gaidar, noted Russian economist and prime minister during Boris Yeltsin’s early years as post-Soviet Russia’s leader. He is also a student of the socioeconomic history of his country, which he traces in the book with skill and insight. Both Eastern and Western influences are examined in light of Russia’s particular challenges and choices over the years and the kinds of institutions it developed as a result. The author focuses on comparing attitudes toward private property and the persistence of Eastern forms of landownership. He sees Marx’s concept of the “Asiatic mode of production” as unfortunately still reflecting Russian realities. Gaidar’s interesting analysis of Western development offers a perspective on private ownership of property in relation to government ownership that explains a lot about the evolution of socioeconomic and political systems East and West. “If our country begins yet another cycle of privatization of authority and office,” concludes the author, “it will shut itself off from the First World. If we can open up this socioeconomic space, if we can let liberal democratic evolution take its course, then Russia will have every chance in the world to take its rightful place among twenty-first-century civilizations.” State and Evolution was published in Russia in 1994. The English edition includes a new preface discussing the significance of events since that time.

Read more less