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Rating: 
Summary: If you want to learn about Stalin, read this book!
Review: Every once in a while, you read a book that teaches you so much. This is such a book. I learned so much about Stalin and life in Russia under Stalin. Also you see how Stalin effects life in Russia to this day. This is a great book!
Rating: 
Summary: Mesmerizing and Haunting
Review: Every so often, a book comes along that no written review, no matter how carefully crafted, can really do justice to. This is one such book.
Hochschild's six month sojourn in 1991 through the remnants of the gulag archipelago is the mesmerizing tale of a once mighty nation still very much haunted by its past descent into madness. Interviewing both victims and perpetrators alike, Hochschild aptly conveys the great extent to which Soviet society still remains conflicted some 50 years after the terror of Stalin's Great Purge.
To his credit, Hochschild does more than simply chronicle the tyranny of Stalin's regime; he continually asks "why?". Why did a movement supposedly predicated on championing and elevating the common man turn so quickly on 20 million of its own people? Why would a regime exert so much time and effort prosecuting and persecuting persons it knew to be innocent? After all the unspeakable injustices perpetrated by Stalin, why would so many weep at his passing? Why do some victims of the regime readily embrace their former captors and tormentors as fellow casualties while others refuse to speak of their ordeals to this very day? A thought provoking narrative that admirably weaves together a complex tangle of emotions and issues.
If The Unquiet Ghost has a shortcoming, it is the author's tendency to occasionally interject his personal political beliefs into the narrative. While some political expressions perhaps have relevance, such as when Hochschild criticizes his liberal forebears who refused to see Stalin's Soviet Union for the brutal totalitarian dictatorship that it was, his off-hand commentary regarding political issues unique to the United States detracts from what it otherwise a fantastic book.
Rating:
Summary: Almost Great
Review: Hochschild is obviously a talented writer, and he does a great job of tackling a very difficult subject. However, often as he was drawing me in, he would throw in an anti-American non-sequitor, like comparing the people in the Gulag to the homeless in America. Huh? I'm not without compassion, but that is comparing one man's cut finger to another man's cut from the guillotine. Hochschild would be well served to leave his alternative agenda out of this book and focus on the subject at hand. The victims of the Gulag deserve nothing less.However, if you can ignore these occasional comments which are out of place and inappropriate, The Unquiet Ghost is a solid effort which worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Almost Great
Review: Hochschild is obviously a talented writer, and he does a great job of tackling a very difficult subject. However, often as he was drawing me in, he would throw in an anti-American non-sequitor, like comparing the people in the Gulag to the homeless in America. Huh? I'm not without compassion, but that is comparing one man's cut finger to another man's cut from the guillotine. Hochschild would be well served to leave his alternative agenda out of this book and focus on the subject at hand. The victims of the Gulag deserve nothing less. However, if you can ignore these occasional comments which are out of place and inappropriate, The Unquiet Ghost is a solid effort which worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Life after Communism
Review: I guess for us in the West, the fall of the Communist regime in Russia was the end of an era, which simply meant that the Cold War was over and there was no more Soviet Union--and not much more. But for the people of Russia, who struggled to survive through all the irrationalities, terror, and oppression, the memories of life under Communism cannot be forgotten. This book is about some of those Russians who are, in varying ways, trying to come to terms with the past, and the stories are truly remarkable. Hochschild is an excellent writer, and anyone who has an interest in post-Communist Russia will find this book very informative.
Rating:
Summary: Life after Communism
Review: I guess for us in the West, the fall of the Communist regime in Russia was the end of an era, which simply meant that the Cold War was over and there was no more Soviet Union--and not much more. But for the people of Russia, who struggled to survive through all the irrationalities, terror, and oppression, the memories of life under Communism cannot be forgotten. This book is about some of those Russians who are, in varying ways, trying to come to terms with the past, and the stories are truly remarkable. Hochschild is an excellent writer, and anyone who has an interest in post-Communist Russia will find this book very informative.
Rating:
Summary: Am I an expert on this?
Review: Several reviews of this book have splendid remarks and thoroughly profound analyses. But, is the subject of this book, the despotic Joseph Stalin and what is remembered about him, really reaching out to its readers? This book can abruptly remind us of the generalities of life all over the world (i.e. psychological and physical abuse) when it comes to the terror of Stalin. The life and people around him he was ceaselessly suspect of doesn't necessarily mean it, his terrror, could never happen again, even on the smallest scale. Terror cannot be quantified. No, what Stalin did was and is as pervasive as any cult of personality. This book decidely opens the door to many perceptions of what Stalin's terror meant, and sadly, still means all over the world. Ever carry your friend or your child on your shoulders as a joke or for fun? A friend of Stalin's did this to him and was later shot. But after this despot died, people mourned and when the new leadership came into being, the terror then manifested itself in the people. They basically reiterated towards the new order all that had held them in complete and utter fear of for more than a generation. This book documents this. It's a book about how unstable people are who have been victims their whole lives, whether they knew it not, and how they come to realize life for others and themselves. It could be a book about life in general when we think of victims of any type of terror and suppression. Their messages to us could be of caution but on the other hand, of propagation, believing the terror to have some substantiation. This book is a good read. But it requires a healthy open mind.
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