author: Timothy Snyder
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2011/05/25
date added: 2011/05/25
shelves: ebook, history, non-fiction
review:
Intense and disturbing look at eastern Europe 1933-1946: "I wish to test the proposition that deliberate and direct mass murder by these two regimes in the bloodlands is a distinct phenomenon worthy of separate treatment" – by "the bloodlands", referring a region encompassing pre-1939 Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus, along with the Baltic states and parts of western Russia. A somewhat different approach, looking at the commonalities of these areas and the waves of killing, starting with deliberate starvation in the Ukraine and going through to the ethnic cleansing (without much killing) of the immediate postwar period. A common theme is the ways that Hitler and Stalin basically played into each other’s hands. The massive numbers make it difficult to comprehend, which is why he uses a lot of particular individual stories to illustrate each phase. A thoughtful book, worth reading if you can stand it.